Nice little earners

The BBC spent £11.8m on consultants over the last three financial years - around 0.08% of its total income over the same period.

But there's fun to be had seeing who's in and out of favour year by year in terms of spend - and amusement that someone in Freedom of Information has adopted the Strictly phraseology 'in no particular order'. McKinsey seems to have dropped out...

The BBC wants me to say "We are obliged to use external organisations to audit our accounts. On occasion, just like any other organisation, we also use external companies for specialist services – this saves the BBC millions of pounds because it is cheaper than employing permanent, full-time staff to carry out work which would only last a short period.”