Liam Fox’s department has spent more than a million pounds on a search for trade specialists

Recruitment consultants have been paid more than a million pounds in a year as part of Liam Fox’s drive to find international trade specialists to work for the UK after Brexit.

Whitehall sources said that the department of international trade (DIT) had “thrown money” at headhunters to attract the best negotiators. So far ministers have only confirmed one senior appointment and refused to say how many officials with “substantial experience” have been hired.

Last year the department employed an international firm of headhunters to carry out a “global search” for a permanent secretary at DIT. It ended up promoting Antonia Romeo, a Whitehall career civil servant with little experience of trade negotiations.

The figures were revealed in a series of parliamentary answers to Lord Adonis,