Meanwhile,spending on consultants and contractors has exploded. While the public service has shrunk by 20 per cent under the Coalition,spending on consultants has tripled to nearly $1.2 billion a year. On the face of it,it seems like a sleight of hand to shrink the size of government while expanding the size of government-serving consultancies. The trouble is,despite what has emerged as a popular consensus against consultants among the chattering classes,it’s not at all clear this is an unwelcome development.
If Chalmers wants a better understanding of the value consultants bring,relative to in-house expertise,he need only ask his new colleague,Labor’s candidate for Parramatta and current Accenture managing director,Andrew Charlton (or he could ask Boston Consulting Group partner Ben Keneally,the husband of Labor’s candidate for Fowler,Kristina Keneally).
There’s been some controversy about Charlton’s $16 million house in Bellevue Hill. But that house was bought with the proceeds of the consulting company that Charlton built from the ground up to offer services to the public and private sectors. That company,AlphaBeta,was successful in part because it offered better value to government:better trained people using better data to provide better advice,for less money than its competitors.
If Chalmers were to ask Charlton whether the model he developed at AlphaBeta would work for the public service,I’m confident his answer would be “no”. Consultants are a soft target but governments,like private companies,use them for various reasons,some of which are virtuous,others less so.
Sometimes,unfortunately,consultants are used to game the system. Government departments often have more flexibility with their financial budgets than with their staffing levels. If you have the same budget but a lower staffing level,then consultants are your only avenue to get the job done. That’s silly and should end.
More pernicious but harder to solve is the motive of arse-covering –a key reason why the private sector uses consultants too. If I want to justify a course of action I’ve already chosen to take,or I want to be able to blame someone else if it fails,consultants are willing and eager whipping boys. So long as that motive exists,so too will consultants.