The government's plans to develop an in-house consulting model for the Australian Public Service by the end of this year is a Rorschach test.
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It could be about workforce capability, about contestability, about cutting waste, about innovation, about protectionism.
Those attending the IPAA national conference on Thursday, where the plan was announced by Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, spoke of the plan with both optimism and caution.
Who will work in these in-house consulting teams, they asked, and what can government do to attract the emerging talent from instead joining the big four and expanding growth of middle-tier consulting firms?
Government rarely pays the rates those firms can offer, so it is about the work and the culture and the opportunity to make a difference.
The best argument government can usually make to hungry and driven workers is the opportunity to work on challenging issues that affect their communities.
But that's not strictly true anymore. Most public sector entities have begun to embrace collaboration and partnerships that mean little of the work of government is now done purely by the public sector, or purely by any other sector. Contributions come from the public service, from the private sector, and from the non-for-profit sector. State and territory tiers particularly are reaping the benefits of that wider pool of expertise.
What kind of work would the in-house consulting teams be given? Often the big four firms are brought in when a minister or secretary wants evidence that recommends what everyone else is doing, or what was going to be done anyway.
There is so much more that a consulting team can do. People with the right skills can investigate cultures, like Samantha Crompvoets was asked to do with special forces that uncovered issues the Chief of Army needed to know and wasn't going to learn any other way. People with the right skills can test and evaluate ideas before they're green lit. Of course government would want people with those skills inside its own workforce.
Who will help construct these teams and make sure they have the right skills? There's already a fear that government will just bring across existing partners from EY, Deloitte, KPMG or PwC. Another option could be training existing public servants under the guidance of those at ANU's Crawford School, UNSW Canberra or ANZSOG. This choice might do the most to shape what kind of team it will be, and where its culture will start.
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The APS has a fraught history of in-house collaborative teams of experts intended to break through the silos, and develop expertise that had been costing taxpayers millions in consulting fees. The Digital Transformation Agency was one, and the larger departments seemingly create a new entity for this purpose after every major review with a critical finding.
Be careful what you wish for, they would say, because those entities don't have a strong history of lasting beyond the first opportunity to quietly get rid of them.
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Harley Dennett
Former federal politics bureau chief for the Canberra Times, via a career that's taken me from rural Victoria to Washington DC. Telling the stories of my local LGBTI community brought me to political journalism, where I've covered eight budgets, four national elections in two countries, Defence, public service and international governance.
Former federal politics bureau chief for the Canberra Times, via a career that's taken me from rural Victoria to Washington DC. Telling the stories of my local LGBTI community brought me to political journalism, where I've covered eight budgets, four national elections in two countries, Defence, public service and international governance.
