22 March 2012 -
Govt’s consultancy bill set to balloon after MFAT debacle, warns PSA

New Zealanders can expect millions more dollars to be wasted on consultants as the government pursues a wrongheaded and out of date approach to reforming public services, the PSA says.

Media are reporting today that the government is spending $9.2 million on its botched MFAT restructure – much of it going to consultants.

The Labour Party has claimed that one consultant, based in Singapore, is being paid $250,000 a year despite visiting New Zealand just once every six weeks. Previous reports have revealed change management consultants being paid $340,000 to advise stressed staff to get a pet.

"This spending typifies a wasteful and outdated approach to improving public services," says PSA National Secretary Brenda Pilott. "The government is spending $9.2 million, most of it going to consultants, for what has been a complete fiasco.

"We know that government spending on consultants was $375 million last year, up from $335 million in National's first year.

"Since then, the government has set a new cap on the public sector workforce, and is planning more costly and complicated restructuring projects. So we can expect that spending bill to balloon further, as departments use consultancy spending to get around the cap on in-house staff.

"That represents a terrible waste of taxpayers' money."

Instead, the government could heed the recent report of its Better Public Services Advisory Group, which advised it to create a culture of "continuous improvement" by drawing on the ideas of public sector staff, Brenda Pilott says.

"The simplest way to improve services – and run them more efficiently – is to ask staff about how things could be done better, and involve them fully in the process of change. The PSA is already scoring major successes by helping run this kind of process in hospitals.

“Rather than spending millions of dollars on consultants, the government should be trying to improve services in the cheapest, least disruptive way possible – by drawing on the ideas of public sector staff."

ENDS

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