An analysis by The Australian of spending on consultants shows the federal government spent $441 million in 2010-11 on independent experts and technical knowledge, down from the $485m it spent in the final year of Kevin Rudd's tenure.
The achievement, if sustained, will help Ms Gillard and her ministers as they begin a crucial budget process in the new year, with further savings measures in prospect to counter softer revenues due to a weakened global economy.
The hefty cut in consultancies was achieved through a $20m reduction by the Department of Defence and a similar-sized trim by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, which has scaled down reviews associated with the implementation of the National Broadband Network.
At first glance, the Environment Department accounted for almost the entire reduction - from $60m in 2009-10 to $18m last financial year - as some of the scientific work on water policy came to an end. Still, a $16m increase in consultancies for the National Water Commission offset the department's savings.
Growth in consultancy spending was most pronounced in areas associated with Ms Gillard's reform priorities, including climate change, workforce participation, infrastructure, regional development and social welfare reforms.
In releasing the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook last month, Finance Minister Penny Wong said an additional, one-off 2.5 per cent efficiency dividend would apply to the federal bureaucracy next financial year. She urged departments and agencies to achieve savings by reducing spending on consultants, contractors, travel and advertising.
The $44m reduction in consultancy spending by the minority Labor government in 2010-11 almost matches the commitment Tony Abbott made at the 2010 election. As part of a savings regime to offset its own promises, the Coalition vowed to cut spending on consultants by $50m in each of the four years to 2013-14.
It was a modest target cut of $200m compared with Labor's $395m pledge in opposition in 2007. In its first three full financial years of stewardship, Labor has managed a cumulative reduction of about $136m from the Coalition's 2006-07 high-spending mark.
Both sides of politics have proved that pledging to cut both consultancies and the size of Canberra's bureaucracy to rein in spending is a task that looks easier in opposition.
The Rudd government was often criticised for a lack of policy action and an over-reliance on official reviews led by high-cost experts from the major consulting firms, academics and market researchers.
When Labor came to office in November 2007 it had a vast policy agenda across key areas such as health reform, climate change, broadband, economic infrastructure and education.
But under Mr Rudd's governing style and mantra of "evidence-based policy", the new administration increasingly turned to hired experts in the private sector and the academy to determine its reform options.
The Rudd government increased spending on consultants by 7.5 per cent in 2008-09, the year the global financial crisis began and when Labor's fiscal stimulus packages were launched, and by 3.4 per cent the following year.
The reliance on outside experts came at a time when many senior advisers in Canberra expressed a frustration that the strategic capability of the federal public service had been eroded under the Howard government.
According to The Australian's analysis of spending by 51 federal departments and agencies since 2005-06, taking into account recent revisions, the peak year for consultancy spending was 2006-07, the final full year of the Howard government, with a bill of $511m.
As a rule, comparisons of consultancy spending between political administrations is becoming more difficult as agencies change the definition of "consultancies" within their accounting frameworks.
Some very large contracts in defence, information technology and social policy, for instance, which were classed as consultancies during the Howard years, have been rebadged as general contracts.
The stricter definition has meant that an agency such as the Immigration Department, which declared a record $92.5m in consultancies in 2006-07, has been able to pare back its recorded spending on outside experts to about $11m in each of the past two years. The actual spending on activities previously judged to be "consultancies" has not necessarily fallen by that amount.
In general, consultancy spending was overstated in some areas during the Howard years, and it has been somewhat understated in those same areas under Labor.
Yet the reverse is true in an agency such as AusAID, which recently reported that a change in policy in the way it viewed contracts meant its consultancy spend jumped fourfold, or by $2m, in a single year.
According to federal guidelines, whether a contract is classed as a consultancy requires it to pass two crucial tests. First, is the work produced an intellectual output that helps in agency decision making? Second, is the advice independent?
What can be said with confidence is that the Coalition spent huge amounts of consultancy fees on merchant bankers and lawyers for privatisation deals, while Labor has tended to spend money on government functions once performed in-house: economic and scientific modelling and system-wide service delivery reforms in education and health.
The figures on consultancy spending were disclosed in departmental and agency annual reports. The agencies included in the analysis are those that have spent up to $1m on consultancies in at least one of the past six years.
沒有留言:
張貼留言