Anthony Albanese: The PwC PM (Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)
PricewaterhouseCoopers claims it was created to fulfil one purpose: “To build trust in society and solve important problems”. Inevitably, its mission statement contains a list of platitudes explaining how it hopes to achieve this; among them is the insistence that employees should “act as if our personal reputations were at stake”.
Whether or not this commandment was ever read out in its Australian HQ — and the evidence suggests it was not — it certainly now makes for uncomfortable reading. In May, accusations that had been bubbling under the surface since late last year exploded into the headlines. Between 2013 and 2015, PwC Australia allegedly advised the government on how to design a system to get more tax out of multinationals — and then used its insider knowledge to advise corporate clients on how to dodge the very same measures.
At the centre of the scandal is PwC Australia’s former head of international tax, Peter-John Collins, though as many as 160 other staff could be implicated. Collins signed three confidentiality agreements with the federal government between 2013 and 2018, before circulating information about the tax plans to 63 PwC partners and senior managers in a long email chain — yes, in writing. His interlocutors didn’t seem too perturbed, either.
In the ensuing kerfuffle, politicians, including prime minister Anthony Albanese and treasurer Jim Chalmers, clamoured to express their outrage at PwC’s conduct. The company was dragged through the coals before a parliamentary inquiry and promised to publicly name all responsible staff. To save the firm, PwC parachuted a new British boss into its Australian division and then sold off its government consulting arm for $1. This section of the business, by the way, employs 1,700 staff with an annual turnover of $300 million — around 20% of PwC’s income in Australia. It seems reasonable to assume the bargain price represents the possible extinction of its entire income stream.
While PwC’s days of having it both ways appear to be over, it remains unclear whether the scandal will be enough to force the Government to wean itself off the consultancy sector. Australia’s management consulting market is the world’s biggest per capita, and fourth-biggest overall, remarkable for a country of only 25 million. And the federal government has been leading the way. Between 2013 and 2022, its annual spending on consultants shot up from $352 million to $888 million per annum. Over the same period, the Big Four professional services firms — PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and Ernst & Young — pocketed $1.2 billion in federal government consultancy contracts, and a whole lot more in professional services fees. Fellow consultancy giants McKinsey & Co. and BCG have also been having a swell time in Australia, rapidly expanding their government business.
Inevitably, since these firms all provide services to both the government and the private sectors, conflicts of interest risks abound. This week, for instance, KPMG launched its own internal review of its contracts advising both the Government on quality and safety audits of aged care facilities, and operators on passing these audits and gaining accreditation. Even the Australian Federal Police, which is now investigating Collins for potential criminal conduct, has awarded PwC consulting contracts worth over $20 million over the past two years, and another $30 million to the other “Big Seven” consulting firms (a group that also includes Accenture). Rather ironically, PwC is also the AFP’s external auditor.
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SubscribeTypical Management Consulting firms tend to promote policies and solutions that increase the supply of problems, because constant problems increase demand for the services of Management Consultancies.
The consulting firm then crafts its own statistical justification for existing and continuously reproduces more rubbish solutions to “fix” the rapidly expanding list of problems it causes through nonsensical (and often wildly outdated) methods.
Their modus operandi is to establish the vague thought that modern work life is somehow subtly dysfunctional, misdiagnose the problem, and propose raft of wilfully ill-motivated solutions.
Management Consulting isn’t meant to be applied at scale. Instead, these firms often privilege morally repugnant, greedy bullies under the guise of “expertise” and harm everybody else.
I wrote a detailed comment about why the plausible deniability resulting from Australia’s governments at state and federal levels using consulting firms leads to the absence of police accountability as well as the re-election of politicians with dubious credentials. Look up my name if the comment doesn’t appear.
I used to work for a small/medium (50 staff) security technology/management consultancy where our motto and business principle was to put our client’s interests first, even if it conflicted with our own short-term interests, as an example, not trying to sell in unnecessary services. We were bought out by such an organisation and the main guiding principle which I had grasped was instead to protect the company’s reputation, above anything else. I didn’t stay long
There was a god book written 25 years ago called Dangerous Company, by James O’Shea, about management companies and the businesses they have destroyed. In fact I was involved, after the event, in one of the cases highlighted by the book
Sounds like you’ve either worked for one of these octopi, or suffered during their engagements. Staffed by unusually over-ambitious and cynical corporate types who find themselves elevated to some vague status of business professionalism. My problems within one of them came when someone left a pile of contracts and ledgers on my desk detailing years of kickbacks from the most influential US IT vendor. Try running that through the DOJ and see how far you get.
I wrote a detailed comment about why the plausible deniability resulting from Australia’s governments at state and federal levels using consulting firms leads to the absence of police accountability as well as the re-election of politicians with dubious credentials. Look up my name if the comment doesn’t appear.
I used to work for a small/medium (50 staff) security technology/management consultancy where our motto and business principle was to put our client’s interests first, even if it conflicted with our own short-term interests, as an example, not trying to sell in unnecessary services. We were bought out by such an organisation and the main guiding principle which I had grasped was instead to protect the company’s reputation, above anything else. I didn’t stay long
There was a god book written 25 years ago called Dangerous Company, by James O’Shea, about management companies and the businesses they have destroyed. In fact I was involved, after the event, in one of the cases highlighted by the book
Sounds like you’ve either worked for one of these octopi, or suffered during their engagements. Staffed by unusually over-ambitious and cynical corporate types who find themselves elevated to some vague status of business professionalism. My problems within one of them came when someone left a pile of contracts and ledgers on my desk detailing years of kickbacks from the most influential US IT vendor. Try running that through the DOJ and see how far you get.
Typical Management Consulting firms tend to promote policies and solutions that increase the supply of problems, because constant problems increase demand for the services of Management Consultancies.
The consulting firm then crafts its own statistical justification for existing and continuously reproduces more rubbish solutions to “fix” the rapidly expanding list of problems it causes through nonsensical (and often wildly outdated) methods.
Their modus operandi is to establish the vague thought that modern work life is somehow subtly dysfunctional, misdiagnose the problem, and propose raft of wilfully ill-motivated solutions.
Management Consulting isn’t meant to be applied at scale. Instead, these firms often privilege morally repugnant, greedy bullies under the guise of “expertise” and harm everybody else.
It’s amazing management consultancy is still a thing. With almost near certainty, once management consultants are brought in they never leave until the business is on life support: financial performance declines even more sharply, customer satisfaction collapses, the business shrinks, an asset fire sale follows, and shareholder value is destroyed. The only people who benefit are the management consultants themselves, their investment advisories who manage the fire sale of assets, and the management team who hide behind the management consultants and might even be rewarded by the management consultants with extra bonuses or a plumb job after it all falls apart. Metaphorically, management consultancy is a freeloader who turns murdererous when the victim runs out of money, and will rob the grave afterwards.
Of course, the reason why management consultancy has spent so many billions around the world to buy its way into the public sector is government will never let public organisations “die”. For the management consultants, the freeloading can in theory last forever. A never ending churn of advisory services, outsourcing planning, franchising structuring, then rinse and repeat when it fails. Terrible for service users and terrible for service funders. Great for senior civil servants and politicians who can jump on the advisory bandwagon and join the management consultants – indeed, that is an all too common bung for bringing in the management consultants.
The fact management consultancy does still exist is explained by mature corporate structures (private and public) being captured by an ineffective managerial class without operational experience who then tirelessly promote each other. The cumulative neglect of operations eventually makes serious problems unavoidable, and management must use outside help because they are so operationally ineffective and cannot rely on internal operational advice because that would reveal their own ineffectiveness. And let’s not forget that personal incentive to bring in the management consultants for a later reward to join them.
In short, when the management consultants are called it is all the evidence you need to say the existing management should be sacked and never allowed to work anywhere else at such senior levels again. The fact government, the very heart of the state, has called in the management consultants tells us our governments are failing and our states will surely soon fail too.
Sounds like someone couldn’t get a job in management consulting.
Read my comments a few above.
Sounds like someone couldn’t get a job in management consulting.
Read my comments a few above.
It’s amazing management consultancy is still a thing. With almost near certainty, once management consultants are brought in they never leave until the business is on life support: financial performance declines even more sharply, customer satisfaction collapses, the business shrinks, an asset fire sale follows, and shareholder value is destroyed. The only people who benefit are the management consultants themselves, their investment advisories who manage the fire sale of assets, and the management team who hide behind the management consultants and might even be rewarded by the management consultants with extra bonuses or a plumb job after it all falls apart. Metaphorically, management consultancy is a freeloader who turns murdererous when the victim runs out of money, and will rob the grave afterwards.
Of course, the reason why management consultancy has spent so many billions around the world to buy its way into the public sector is government will never let public organisations “die”. For the management consultants, the freeloading can in theory last forever. A never ending churn of advisory services, outsourcing planning, franchising structuring, then rinse and repeat when it fails. Terrible for service users and terrible for service funders. Great for senior civil servants and politicians who can jump on the advisory bandwagon and join the management consultants – indeed, that is an all too common bung for bringing in the management consultants.
The fact management consultancy does still exist is explained by mature corporate structures (private and public) being captured by an ineffective managerial class without operational experience who then tirelessly promote each other. The cumulative neglect of operations eventually makes serious problems unavoidable, and management must use outside help because they are so operationally ineffective and cannot rely on internal operational advice because that would reveal their own ineffectiveness. And let’s not forget that personal incentive to bring in the management consultants for a later reward to join them.
In short, when the management consultants are called it is all the evidence you need to say the existing management should be sacked and never allowed to work anywhere else at such senior levels again. The fact government, the very heart of the state, has called in the management consultants tells us our governments are failing and our states will surely soon fail too.
and
describe the Australia we live in accurately.
One of the outcomes is the effortless re-election of politicians like Daniel Andrews, irrespective of their obvious failings, e.g. using Victoria Police to arrest old ladies during their permitted outdoor exercise time during Covid lock-downs, fire rubber bullets on unarmed* protesters etc.
Another outcome is Australia’s statutory and regulatory bodies existing for the illusion of law and order only.
In effect the IBAC** whose raison d’être is to investigate the misconduct of Victoria Police amongst others is so starved of both funds and power, they have to refer over 90% of complaints against Victoria Police – back to Victoria Police to investigate with predictable outcomes. And, section 194 of the IBAC Act allows Victoria Police to bypass their Freedom of Information obligations about their self-investigations, effectively providing them with an impenetrable cloak of secrecy – further enforcing decades’ old risk-free criminality.
Just how dangerous it is to have police lacking both, duty of care and accountability is so well hidden, I had no idea about Australia’s lawlessness 1988-2008 living within a 10 km radius of where a stalker coworker’s crimes against me started in 2009 in Melbourne. Last break-in that I know of on 13 April 2023. I gave up trying to report any crimes in 2018. People can live in Australia for many decades without ever finding out that our police manage crime statistics via terrorising crime witnesses and victims into silent oblivion, that murderous, violent thugs die from old age without any trouble no matter how many people witness their crimes.
The stalker has Victoria Police associates who show off their uniforms participating in his crimes – while Victoria Police force the victim to fight at court as an accused criminal in an admitted silencing attempt. The stalker had (still has?) unrestricted access to info e.g. the up-to-date whereabouts of people in witness protection via his IT Helpdesk Assistant job at the Victorian Electoral Commission.
Apologies for the personal aspects of this comment. As a public servant witness to crimes punishable by 10 years in jail/worse turned devastated victim of ongoing, unpunished crimes in a suburb of million $ homes in Melbourne, I am unable to carry the burden of silence.
* Protesters dispute claims of Victoria Police officers attacked. Many of the protesters had small children with them.
** Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission
Be careful, I am sure the whistleblower protection has no teeth and is years out of date just like the Brisbane City Council
Thank you for caring Peter. I cannot carry the burden of silence.
I had exhausted all legal avenues to have crimes punishable by 10 years in jail/worse that I witnessed as a public servant, crimes I have been forced to live with since 2009 at least on record prior to starting my Public Interest Disclosures on every possible fora, including LinkedIn.
Living in Australia is a hard earned privilege for me, I wasn’t born here.
Like many others, I paid an enormous price to have my children grow up in a country of law-and-order, only to learn that Australia’s squeaky-clean reputation is based on fudged crime statistics, starting with crimes never investigated = crimes never happened, that Australia likely never had functional law-enforcement, that our most dangerous criminals are Victoria Police officers who aren’t just experts at how to avoid prosecution like all other police officers, but are also protected via an impenetrable cloak of secrecy thanks to section 194 of the IBAC Act.
I have lost so much to ongoing, devastating, unpunished crimes since 2009 (last unmissable cyber-crime about 10 minutes ago, last bikie visit to my home overnight) for no other reasons than a stalker IT Helpdesk Assistant at the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) adding me to his already extensive list of concurrent targets because I became an e-commerce world-champion in my postgrad studies while working as a Business Analyst the VEC in 2009, I have so very little left to lose, I might as well be that one Jew who fights back, risking awkward failure as her last act on Earth.
Peace is apparently the existence of justice, not just the absence of war. I am doing my bit for peace to have a chance in Australia.
Thank you for caring Peter. I cannot carry the burden of silence.
I had exhausted all legal avenues to have crimes punishable by 10 years in jail/worse that I witnessed as a public servant, crimes I have been forced to live with since 2009 at least on record prior to starting my Public Interest Disclosures on every possible fora, including LinkedIn.
Living in Australia is a hard earned privilege for me, I wasn’t born here.
Like many others, I paid an enormous price to have my children grow up in a country of law-and-order, only to learn that Australia’s squeaky-clean reputation is based on fudged crime statistics, starting with crimes never investigated = crimes never happened, that Australia likely never had functional law-enforcement, that our most dangerous criminals are Victoria Police officers who aren’t just experts at how to avoid prosecution like all other police officers, but are also protected via an impenetrable cloak of secrecy thanks to section 194 of the IBAC Act.
I have lost so much to ongoing, devastating, unpunished crimes since 2009 (last unmissable cyber-crime about 10 minutes ago, last bikie visit to my home overnight) for no other reasons than a stalker IT Helpdesk Assistant at the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) adding me to his already extensive list of concurrent targets because I became an e-commerce world-champion in my postgrad studies while working as a Business Analyst the VEC in 2009, I have so very little left to lose, I might as well be that one Jew who fights back, risking awkward failure as her last act on Earth.
Peace is apparently the existence of justice, not just the absence of war. I am doing my bit for peace to have a chance in Australia.
Be careful, I am sure the whistleblower protection has no teeth and is years out of date just like the Brisbane City Council
and
describe the Australia we live in accurately.
One of the outcomes is the effortless re-election of politicians like Daniel Andrews, irrespective of their obvious failings, e.g. using Victoria Police to arrest old ladies during their permitted outdoor exercise time during Covid lock-downs, fire rubber bullets on unarmed* protesters etc.
Another outcome is Australia’s statutory and regulatory bodies existing for the illusion of law and order only.
In effect the IBAC** whose raison d’être is to investigate the misconduct of Victoria Police amongst others is so starved of both funds and power, they have to refer over 90% of complaints against Victoria Police – back to Victoria Police to investigate with predictable outcomes. And, section 194 of the IBAC Act allows Victoria Police to bypass their Freedom of Information obligations about their self-investigations, effectively providing them with an impenetrable cloak of secrecy – further enforcing decades’ old risk-free criminality.
Just how dangerous it is to have police lacking both, duty of care and accountability is so well hidden, I had no idea about Australia’s lawlessness 1988-2008 living within a 10 km radius of where a stalker coworker’s crimes against me started in 2009 in Melbourne. Last break-in that I know of on 13 April 2023. I gave up trying to report any crimes in 2018. People can live in Australia for many decades without ever finding out that our police manage crime statistics via terrorising crime witnesses and victims into silent oblivion, that murderous, violent thugs die from old age without any trouble no matter how many people witness their crimes.
The stalker has Victoria Police associates who show off their uniforms participating in his crimes – while Victoria Police force the victim to fight at court as an accused criminal in an admitted silencing attempt. The stalker had (still has?) unrestricted access to info e.g. the up-to-date whereabouts of people in witness protection via his IT Helpdesk Assistant job at the Victorian Electoral Commission.
Apologies for the personal aspects of this comment. As a public servant witness to crimes punishable by 10 years in jail/worse turned devastated victim of ongoing, unpunished crimes in a suburb of million $ homes in Melbourne, I am unable to carry the burden of silence.
* Protesters dispute claims of Victoria Police officers attacked. Many of the protesters had small children with them.
** Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission
And this is why I left teaching and went into consultancy. Instead of being made the one to suffer policy I now get paid to create policy. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
And this is why I left teaching and went into consultancy. Instead of being made the one to suffer policy I now get paid to create policy. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
“But in Australia, even as the public service’s share of the workforce has shrunk since the Seventies, government spending’s share of GDP has increased. If neoliberalism isn’t to blame, what is?“
Wouldn’t this imply that farming core services out to the private sector isn’t as efficient or cost effective as it’s supporters claim?
Efficiency or cost effectiveness aren’t the main driving forces. Plausible deniability is.
The resulting incompetence would be hilarious, if the consequences weren’t so dire. See the statements of Clare O’Neil, Australia’s Minister for Cyber Security and for Home Affairs about 100 Australian experts to stop cyber-crime globally via hack-back, and Australia to become the world’s most cyber-secure country by 2030. I gave up reading her statements after seeing terms like “Indigenous ICT” and “culturally appropriate SOC” in LinkedIn. These statements make Australia not just a laughing stock, but also an obvious target for cyber-criminals worldwide.
Clare O’Neil as Minister for Cyber Security did not know until after the Optus and Medibank data-breaches in 2022 affecting about one third of Australia’s population, i.e. for around six months as Minister for Cyber Security, that
Clare O’Neil has been the MP for my electorate for more than a decade. She ignored my pleas for help when Victoria Police blocked my reporting attempts as a public servant witness to crimes punishable by 10 years in jail. Crimes I was blocked from reporting are not showing up in any statistics, criminals committing these crimes remain free to commit further/worse crimes.
Efficiency or cost effectiveness aren’t the main driving forces. Plausible deniability is.
The resulting incompetence would be hilarious, if the consequences weren’t so dire. See the statements of Clare O’Neil, Australia’s Minister for Cyber Security and for Home Affairs about 100 Australian experts to stop cyber-crime globally via hack-back, and Australia to become the world’s most cyber-secure country by 2030. I gave up reading her statements after seeing terms like “Indigenous ICT” and “culturally appropriate SOC” in LinkedIn. These statements make Australia not just a laughing stock, but also an obvious target for cyber-criminals worldwide.
Clare O’Neil as Minister for Cyber Security did not know until after the Optus and Medibank data-breaches in 2022 affecting about one third of Australia’s population, i.e. for around six months as Minister for Cyber Security, that
Clare O’Neil has been the MP for my electorate for more than a decade. She ignored my pleas for help when Victoria Police blocked my reporting attempts as a public servant witness to crimes punishable by 10 years in jail. Crimes I was blocked from reporting are not showing up in any statistics, criminals committing these crimes remain free to commit further/worse crimes.
“But in Australia, even as the public service’s share of the workforce has shrunk since the Seventies, government spending’s share of GDP has increased. If neoliberalism isn’t to blame, what is?“
Wouldn’t this imply that farming core services out to the private sector isn’t as efficient or cost effective as it’s supporters claim?
National security isn’t exempt from Australia’s absurd governing reality – Australia’s allies, beware.
I came across the below typical copy and paste consultant report paragraph in an article titled “Sharing Defence capability to mitigate national security risks” today, 10 July 2023. I worked as a consultant. I know a consultant report when I see one:
The article is about Australia’s national security.
Australia has no functional law-enforcement, likely never had. We have no FBI equivalent, we only have police officers, who never had either a duty of care or accountability, while always having a monopoly on what is a crime.
Any security is therefore a function of power in both physical and cyber-space. As our billionaire bikies keep flaunting,
in Australia might = right.
Crime-hiding is perfected to such levels, people can live decades in Australia without having any idea about Australia’s lawlessness. I lived within a 10km radius 1988-2008 from where a stalker coworker’s onslaught of unpunished crimes against me started in 2009, and knew nothing about bikies, drug-trafficking, Victoria Police officers openly participating in crimes in broad daylight without any risk of prosecution, tech far beyond what civilian experts know about being used to discredit witnesses of crimes, who cannot be terrorised into silence. Victoria Police aren’t the only corrupt ones in Australia of course.
Australia’s fake facade of law-and-order relies on police blocking even public servant witnesses’ reporting attempts of crimes punishable by 10 years in jail/worse, and, if the hapless public servant’s conscience cannot bear the burden of silence in spite of being ridiculed, humiliated, and terrorised, then forcing the crime witness to fight at court as an accused criminal in an admitted silencing attempt – the witness turned accused criminal being harassed 24×7 while being forced to fight at court, and Victoria Police adding entrapment attempts 2x to the mix for good measure.
There are of course a plethora of entities with lofty names virtue-signalling to the world how righteous Australia is, costing taxpayers billions each year. Having gone down every rabbit-hole 2009-2018 trying to at least have crimes I witnessed as a public servant on official record, I had to learn that all crime-related roads lead back to police: if police refuse to acknowledge that an act is a crime, the crime never happened. If police cannot block crime reporting, they routinely refuse/’miss’/’lose’/misinterpret evidence, and then close cases ‘due to insufficient evidence’, lying about crimes they are unable to wriggle out of investigating – the Auditor General cynically declaring stats reliable, after listing several obvious reasons why the stats are not reliable.
The result is Australia’s fabulous crime-statics, with Melbourne and Sydney featuring in the top 10 most liveable cities in the world even in 2023. Again.
National security isn’t exempt from Australia’s absurd governing reality – Australia’s allies, beware.
I came across the below typical copy and paste consultant report paragraph in an article titled “Sharing Defence capability to mitigate national security risks” today, 10 July 2023. I worked as a consultant. I know a consultant report when I see one:
The article is about Australia’s national security.
Australia has no functional law-enforcement, likely never had. We have no FBI equivalent, we only have police officers, who never had either a duty of care or accountability, while always having a monopoly on what is a crime.
Any security is therefore a function of power in both physical and cyber-space. As our billionaire bikies keep flaunting,
in Australia might = right.
Crime-hiding is perfected to such levels, people can live decades in Australia without having any idea about Australia’s lawlessness. I lived within a 10km radius 1988-2008 from where a stalker coworker’s onslaught of unpunished crimes against me started in 2009, and knew nothing about bikies, drug-trafficking, Victoria Police officers openly participating in crimes in broad daylight without any risk of prosecution, tech far beyond what civilian experts know about being used to discredit witnesses of crimes, who cannot be terrorised into silence. Victoria Police aren’t the only corrupt ones in Australia of course.
Australia’s fake facade of law-and-order relies on police blocking even public servant witnesses’ reporting attempts of crimes punishable by 10 years in jail/worse, and, if the hapless public servant’s conscience cannot bear the burden of silence in spite of being ridiculed, humiliated, and terrorised, then forcing the crime witness to fight at court as an accused criminal in an admitted silencing attempt – the witness turned accused criminal being harassed 24×7 while being forced to fight at court, and Victoria Police adding entrapment attempts 2x to the mix for good measure.
There are of course a plethora of entities with lofty names virtue-signalling to the world how righteous Australia is, costing taxpayers billions each year. Having gone down every rabbit-hole 2009-2018 trying to at least have crimes I witnessed as a public servant on official record, I had to learn that all crime-related roads lead back to police: if police refuse to acknowledge that an act is a crime, the crime never happened. If police cannot block crime reporting, they routinely refuse/’miss’/’lose’/misinterpret evidence, and then close cases ‘due to insufficient evidence’, lying about crimes they are unable to wriggle out of investigating – the Auditor General cynically declaring stats reliable, after listing several obvious reasons why the stats are not reliable.
The result is Australia’s fabulous crime-statics, with Melbourne and Sydney featuring in the top 10 most liveable cities in the world even in 2023. Again.
Public services in Britain were dire, full of clock watching jobsworths who couldn’t be sacked and existed to spend budgets rather than increase efficiencies. Spending a lot of time in Australia, I believe that scenario also applied there.
A primary function of external consultancy projects should always be to do themselves out of a job by enabling clients to do theirs better.
Most consultants are higher calibre than the average public servant and have more varied experience. Few organisations can afford to put such people on the payroll. Consultants have seen more examples of good and bad practice across other organisations, can usually zero in on the issues quite quickly and know which of their previous solutions have worked best. To demonise consultancy and to say public servants could do it better is nonsense.
However, those allowing conflict of interest to occur on the public purse deserve to go out of business.
“Most consultants are higher calibre than the average public servant …”
I beg to differ. I had direct experience of working with a major management consultancy when I was employed in a senior public service position. The management consultants with whom we dealt were most certainly NOT higher calibre than the public servants with whom I worked. Many of the consultants (for whom we paid extortionate daily rates) were fresh out of university (typically Oxbridge/Ivy League) and knew nothing about our services and business models. They were arrogant, opinionated and generally ignorant and ill-informed about our business. We called them the ‘boys in short trousers’! Best of all, they relied on us to provide them with all the information and strategic vision material, then parcelled up our outputs in their own pathetic management speak and fashionable processes derived from MBA lectures; and charged our organisation huge amounts of money for the privilege. Apart from vast quantities of paperwork generated by the consultants’ demands for information and pretty ‘traffic light’ reports and impressive graphics, I don’t believe the organisation derived any long term benefit from the engagement with the consultancy, which certainly enjoyed a profitable relationship with us while it lasted.
I scrutinised their monthly statements very closely and on several occasions spotted claims for attendances at meeting that were false! I refused to signb these off. When these falsehoods (‘oh dear, errors!’) were pointed out the invoices were amended immediately without apology or explanation. They once invited all the service heads to dinner at a city restaurant, ostensibly to say ‘thank you’ for all the help they’d received in their work with the organisation – then incorporated a huge bill for the restaurant dinner in the next round of invoices. A generous ‘thank you’? – what a load of crap! I refused to attend the dinner as I smelled a rat.
The public sector uses management consultancy largely to distance itself from responsibility for strategic decisions – this is because top executives and the elected politicians to whom they are accountable desire to remain employed or in power – hence resorting to management consultants to cover their arses. And the cost of management consultancy in the public sector is gigantic. The consultancies are onto a good meal ticket!
I am sure there are good management consultants, just as there are poor public servants. But demonising public servants is no better than demonising consultancy.
Great comment
Great comment
Public services in Britain are still dire, except now they’re more expensive, still require vast government subsidies to function but have a wealthy elite creaming the funds off the top such as in the case of Thames Water and various rail companies. In my opinion leaving items such as utilities where you have a natural monopoly to the market simply doesn’t work. Ultimately the electricity coming into your house is coming from the same cable from the same power station whoever is clipping the ticket on route
One Paula Vennells , she of the infamous Post Office scandal has yet to answer for her behaviour.
Just one example of what a corrupt cesspit ‘progressive’ Britain has become.
Yes, a disgraceful affair. No doubt we can look forward to an inquiry reporting on it in a couple of decades time when most of those involved are retired on handsome pensions or dead.
My ‘spies’ tell me Vennells is flourishing in a senior position in the NHS!
Who would have guessed? And to think she was once a ‘woman’ of God!
My ‘spies’ tell me Vennells is flourishing in a senior position in the NHS!
Who would have guessed? And to think she was once a ‘woman’ of God!
Yes, a disgraceful affair. No doubt we can look forward to an inquiry reporting on it in a couple of decades time when most of those involved are retired on handsome pensions or dead.
Private companies are only more efficient than public one’s if they have the spur and incentive of competition and clients who care about what they are buying. Unfortunately too many privatised utilities have a natural monopoly and where the client is a civil service department the incentive to get value for money may not be a priority.
One Paula Vennells , she of the infamous Post Office scandal has yet to answer for her behaviour.
Just one example of what a corrupt cesspit ‘progressive’ Britain has become.
Private companies are only more efficient than public one’s if they have the spur and incentive of competition and clients who care about what they are buying. Unfortunately too many privatised utilities have a natural monopoly and where the client is a civil service department the incentive to get value for money may not be a priority.
The management of public services is pretty dire, but I don’t think that the private sector is much better. Working in healthcare in a government institution I have seen a number of reviews by the big 4 – well 3 of them at least – and they all demonstrated a complete lack ignorance of our purpose ie what we actually did, issued a report that suggested facile solutions to minor problems whilst ignoring the real ones. The reports were greeted with enthusiasm by our management and were then enacted in a half-@rsed manner resulting in a continuing deterioration in services and demoralisation of staff. Our management were quite capable of ruining the institution without the help of consultants, but the external reviews got them off the hook with their political masters and gave the illusion of change.
Well summarised!
Well summarised!
“Most consultants are higher calibre than the average public servant …”
I beg to differ. I had direct experience of working with a major management consultancy when I was employed in a senior public service position. The management consultants with whom we dealt were most certainly NOT higher calibre than the public servants with whom I worked. Many of the consultants (for whom we paid extortionate daily rates) were fresh out of university (typically Oxbridge/Ivy League) and knew nothing about our services and business models. They were arrogant, opinionated and generally ignorant and ill-informed about our business. We called them the ‘boys in short trousers’! Best of all, they relied on us to provide them with all the information and strategic vision material, then parcelled up our outputs in their own pathetic management speak and fashionable processes derived from MBA lectures; and charged our organisation huge amounts of money for the privilege. Apart from vast quantities of paperwork generated by the consultants’ demands for information and pretty ‘traffic light’ reports and impressive graphics, I don’t believe the organisation derived any long term benefit from the engagement with the consultancy, which certainly enjoyed a profitable relationship with us while it lasted.
I scrutinised their monthly statements very closely and on several occasions spotted claims for attendances at meeting that were false! I refused to signb these off. When these falsehoods (‘oh dear, errors!’) were pointed out the invoices were amended immediately without apology or explanation. They once invited all the service heads to dinner at a city restaurant, ostensibly to say ‘thank you’ for all the help they’d received in their work with the organisation – then incorporated a huge bill for the restaurant dinner in the next round of invoices. A generous ‘thank you’? – what a load of crap! I refused to attend the dinner as I smelled a rat.
The public sector uses management consultancy largely to distance itself from responsibility for strategic decisions – this is because top executives and the elected politicians to whom they are accountable desire to remain employed or in power – hence resorting to management consultants to cover their arses. And the cost of management consultancy in the public sector is gigantic. The consultancies are onto a good meal ticket!
I am sure there are good management consultants, just as there are poor public servants. But demonising public servants is no better than demonising consultancy.
Public services in Britain are still dire, except now they’re more expensive, still require vast government subsidies to function but have a wealthy elite creaming the funds off the top such as in the case of Thames Water and various rail companies. In my opinion leaving items such as utilities where you have a natural monopoly to the market simply doesn’t work. Ultimately the electricity coming into your house is coming from the same cable from the same power station whoever is clipping the ticket on route
The management of public services is pretty dire, but I don’t think that the private sector is much better. Working in healthcare in a government institution I have seen a number of reviews by the big 4 – well 3 of them at least – and they all demonstrated a complete lack ignorance of our purpose ie what we actually did, issued a report that suggested facile solutions to minor problems whilst ignoring the real ones. The reports were greeted with enthusiasm by our management and were then enacted in a half-@rsed manner resulting in a continuing deterioration in services and demoralisation of staff. Our management were quite capable of ruining the institution without the help of consultants, but the external reviews got them off the hook with their political masters and gave the illusion of change.
Public services in Britain were dire, full of clock watching jobsworths who couldn’t be sacked and existed to spend budgets rather than increase efficiencies. Spending a lot of time in Australia, I believe that scenario also applied there.
A primary function of external consultancy projects should always be to do themselves out of a job by enabling clients to do theirs better.
Most consultants are higher calibre than the average public servant and have more varied experience. Few organisations can afford to put such people on the payroll. Consultants have seen more examples of good and bad practice across other organisations, can usually zero in on the issues quite quickly and know which of their previous solutions have worked best. To demonise consultancy and to say public servants could do it better is nonsense.
However, those allowing conflict of interest to occur on the public purse deserve to go out of business.
Very interesting but this all sounds pretty typical – just what we’ve come to expect from the huge consulting firms.
Very interesting but this all sounds pretty typical – just what we’ve come to expect from the huge consulting firms.
ahhh Australia… world centre of culture and intellect…
ahhh Australia… world centre of culture and intellect…