The Financial Times corrects report on UK consultant spending after misstating government timetable

The Financial Times has issued a correction to its reporting on British government consultancy spending after incorrectly stating that ministers had delayed their target to halve spending on consultants by three years.

The original article, published on January 10, analysed a fourteen percent reduction in consultancy costs across Whitehall and examined whether Sir Keir Starmer’s government was on track to meet its efficiency pledges. In doing so, it stated that the ambition to halve consultancy spending had been pushed back, suggesting slippage in one of Labour’s flagship cost-cutting commitments.

A correction published a week later clarified that this was wrong. The government is, in fact, still planning to meet its target within the original timeframe, rather than postponing it by three years.

The error matters because timing is central to how such figures are interpreted politically. Framing the target as delayed implicitly casts the reported spending reductions as insufficient or cosmetic, reinforcing a narrative of missed promises and administrative inertia. By contrast, confirming that the deadline remains intact positions the same data as evidence of progress rather than drift.

The amended article also sits within a broader discussion about transparency and classification in government spending, including concerns raised by the National Audit Office over inconsistent reporting of consultancy costs. In that context, precision around official targets is especially important. Misstating the timetable risks compounding public confusion in an area already clouded by technical definitions and reclassification disputes.

As with many corrections of this kind, the clarification restores the factual record without revisiting the wider interpretive frame of the piece. Readers who encountered the initial version would reasonably have come away with the impression that the government had quietly relaxed its ambitions. The correction corrects that point, but does so after the original narrative had time to circulate.

The episode illustrates a recurring feature of financial and policy reporting under pressure. Errors rarely overturn the substance of an analysis, but small inaccuracies about dates, baselines or targets can subtly but significantly alter how performance and credibility are judged. Corrections repair the detail, but the first impression often endures.