You asked
I looked at your reply to the FOI enquiry 2524 (http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/about-ons/business-transparency/freedom-of-information/what-can-i-request/previous-foi-requests/government/uk-statistics-authority-functions/index.html) about the cost of the assessment work. The costs in the table look odd to me - down about 20% when your fte have pretty much doubled. Can you confirm if the numbers are right? If they are right, it would be really helpful to know if there is a simple reason for this.
We said
The reduction in the budgeted figures is largely accounted for by consultancy costs which were originally included in the budget for 2009-10 to 2011-12 at around £280,000 but were not spent and were therefore significantly reduced in the budgets for subsequent years. In 2012-13 the amount included in the budget for consultancy costs was £50,000.
With regard to FTEs, the FTE in 2008-09 was 11.9 but no corresponding budget is available for that year. The FTEs from 2009-10 to 2015-16 have increased from 16.6 to 19.9 which is an increase of only 3.3.