Assuming the whole thing is competitively tendered then effectively outsourced to the winning agency, then 70K probably buys you a couple of months only of a designer/IAs time (and they probably produce 2 or 3 options, from which one is chosen). Bearing in mind that a London agency charges at least 2.5* wages to turn a profit, has to produce and submit a tender before work starts (cost to them could be 10K easily), and then supplies the project/account management and other unnecessary middle men ! (i.e. assuming that the Dept don't have the staff internally).

Using the figures above, a cost of 70K to the dept. would only pay for about 20Ks worth of agency person's salary. Let's be conservative and say that 1/3 of that is on PM/acct. manager etc. So we are left with 14K of designer/IA (and maybe tech) salary. Sounds like a smaller piece of work now.

Sure, it could be (much) cheaper if the dept. went straight to a known well-trusted freelance designer/IA/tech person. I know because I am one as are you by the look of things. There are transparency/accountability problems with that though as I'm sure we have both experienced.

Ultimately that 70K is going into the economy, and supporting a number of jobs. The main issue for me is an efficiency one - frighteningly little of it reaches the people doing the hands-on work. Maybe only 20%

I look at Act On CO2 for example, which cost £220k, £50k and £70k in successive years - for 'design'. If that's purely for graphics work, then yes, that seems high. And I'm a bit curious at the same website spending tens of thousands, year after year, on 'design'.

I'd be interested in knowing what the department's total spend was (whether on or off the books, so including all staff and pension costs, cost of office space, and so on) over the same period. I would expect 400k to be a minor expense, relatively speaking.