Labor to bring consulting work in-house at APS as Katy Gallagher announces reforms

Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher will announce a model for in-house consulting for federal departments and agencies in a speech on Thursday, saying some of the most interesting work for public servants shouldn't be handed to the private sector.

"There is already deep expertise in the Australian Public Service. Like data analytics and evaluation, customer service and event management, foreign policy, geoscience, or curating priceless historical collections," she will say.

"An in-house consulting model will give public servants the opportunity to develop expertise further, build relationships, collaborate with colleagues, and challenge themselves in new ways. It can create opportunities to work across departments to support one APS."

The new Labor government has started work on the model for consulting work - including evaluation, project management and strategy - back into the public service after years of growing spending on private consultancies under the Coalition.

It aims to have a model to consider by the end of the year, and among international examples it could look to is the British civil service's internal consulting hub, established to reduce the UK government's reliance on consultancies and grow internal skills.

Under the British model, departments and agencies fund an internal hub that offers a team of experts to work across the bureaucracy for set periods and on specific projects.

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Senator Gallagher's announcement will follow a Labor federal election promise to cut wasteful spending on consultancy contracts and rebuild the public service's capability.

The APS Academy, established under the Coalition to build skills inside the public service, would play an important role alongside the in-house consulting model, Senator Gallagher is expected to say.

"Let's not give away some of our most interesting work on evaluation, project management and strategy to the private sector," she will say.

Senator Gallagher will announce the Albanese government's mechanism to bring consulting work back in-house in a speech to the Institute of Public Administration Australia's national conference in Canberra, where she will outline Labor's vision and reforms for the APS.

She is expected to outline challenges the public service has faced in the last decade, and will continue to face in coming years.

Labor has promised to also restore integrity in the public service, boost transparency in government, and make the APS a model employer.

"There is work to be done in repairing years of neglect suffered by our public institutions," Senator Gallagher will say.

"Outsourcing, poor resourcing, clunky systems, and deliberate devaluing by the previous Morrison government has meant that the Australian people are looking at our institutions with a more jaundiced eye."

"The Albanese Labor government's plans to reform the APS will make it an organisation that is more capable, with greater integrity, placing people at the centre of what we do and a model for other governments and organisations to follow."

Labor's move to reduce the public service's reliance on consultancies could lead to major savings for the government, after cumulative bills for consultancy contracts ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars in the last years of the Coalition government.

The APS consultancy bill at one point averaged about $2 million every day.

Senator Gallagher has also flagged Labor would pursue an agenda to reform the public service, after changes recommended in the major Thodey review in 2019 were shelved by the Morrison government.

Labor appointed former department head Gordon de Brouwer as secretary for public sector reform in June.

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