Over the past year or so, reports have emerged documenting the billions in taxpayer funds that have flowed to consultants.
In September 2016, Michael West reported how the Big Four accounting firms had taken corporate welfare to an extraordinary level, earning up at least $2.6 billion in fees from the Australian government over the past ten years at the same time as they advised multinationals on how to avoid paying tax.
It was a theme also picked up over at Fairfax, which revealed that while the Abbott Government was busy slashing the public service, the Big Four accounting firms cashed in:
In June, Adam Creighton noted the hyper-inflation of consultants since 2012, many of whom are sucking at the taxpayer teat:
The ranks of the phantom public service have been steadily expanding, and governments should tell the public by how much…
The number of “management and organisation analysts” in Australia — an occupation category that includes management consultants — has grown by 8000 since 2012 to about 60,000, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics…
The in August, The Australian’s David Crowe reported that the nation’s big four consulting firms have reaped a $1 billion in fees from the federal government over the last three years as the public service turned to outside contractors to do more work.
Over the weekend, Fairfax continued the theme, reporting that the federal government’s multi-billion dollar spending on contractors will come under the scrutiny of a new parliamentary committee following an Auditor-General’s report showing massive growth in private consultancy fees over the past four years:
Following an auditor-general’s report that estimated the government poured $47 billion into contracts last year, a parliamentary committee will look at the volume and value of the spend and the way agencies conducted procurement…
The main public sector union said the inquiry was a long overdue examination of the cost, effectiveness and lack of transparency involved “when private interests are invited in to profit from public services”.
Community and Public Sector Union national secretary Nadine Flood said multinational companies like the big four consultancy firms, KPMG, Ernst and Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte, had reaped tens of millions of dollars through government contracts…
The Australian National Audit Office report released earlier this month showed federal government consultancy contracts established because of “need for specialised or professional skills” grew from more than $200 million in 2012-13 to more than $500 million last financial year.
Job cuts since the 2013 federal election have seen the public sector workforce at the lowest level in nearly a decade and almost $700 million being spent on consultancy contracts in 2016-17…
In August it was revealed federal government spending with Australia’s biggest consultancy firms more than doubled since Tony Abbott’s election win, costing taxpayers nearly $1 billion since 2013, despite pledges to drive down public service outsourcing.
Figures provided to a Senate committee showed contracts with the big four consulting firms more than doubled in value from $196.4 million in 2013-14 to $420.3 million in 2015-16.
There are several reasons why governments prefer to use consultants over the public service.
Most notably, it provides them with cover. They can claim that a given policy is based on “independent advice”, even though the results are often pre-determined and effectively purchased. It also allows governments to deflect blame to the consultancy firm (read cover their arse) in the event that a policy goes bad.
However, the problems run deeper than merely replacing one set of workers with a more expensive set of workers. It also reflects the broader loss of independence and the politicisation of the public service, whereby governments of both persuasions are now too willing to outsource policy development to consultants or (erroneously named) think tanks.
Add in the seemingly unbridled growth in the number of staffers and advisors in ministers’ offices, and the role of departments in policy formulation and advice has been badly diminished.
Sadly, the days of “frank and fearless advice” have disappeared in favour of spin and compromised analysis designed to support a pre-conceived political agenda.
