Read on Twitter
I would like to understand this “Crown Consultancy” concept. No doubt that after a combination of cuts over the past decade, Brexit and a global pandemic means the civil service has been stretched to a point where outsourcing was the only option. And that’s costly.
Question is how much of that additional capacity that has been brought in reflects long-term need for expanded public sector. Where it pertains to Brexit, it seems clear that the answer is the U.K. government will need to increase headcount (see recent note with @JohnSpringford)
Where it pertains to pandemic spending the case is less clear, but there’s certainly an argument to build up some precautionary additional capacity even after this acute period of the crisis ends. Problem with it is that’s always the bit that gets cut in “efficiency” drives.
But I fear there’s a misdiagnosis at the centre of the idea - that what the civil service needs is a broader bench of generalist consultant-types that can be thrown into problems as they develop (see also: Cummings genius squad; nudge unit as was). This seems misguided.
Problem civil service appears to have is to build and maintain specialism within departments in order to incrementally improve provision rather than imagining some crack team of “consultants” to plug any shape hole in capacity. There’s a false economy lurking here.
And also have to ask what role external consultants/service providers play. First is flexibility in terms of addressing urgent but temporary projects: Someone needs to bear cost of maintain a large staff that can be brought to bear when a problem emerges. Should it be the state?
Secondly (& this is more contentious), accountability. If/when Crown Consultancy fails, will be the government at fault. When it’s BCG, PWC etc there’s at least some air gap of responsibility. This may not be a big issue, but don’t see much desire from this gvmt to own decisions.
So if the pitch here is “we need to put more resources into our civil service in order to allow it to meet increased demand” then I have no problem with it. If, instead, it’s “look at this line item we’re paying, let’s just recreate the consultancy model internally” I’m less keen
If I’m missing something important about why this might actually be a good idea, would be interested to know though!
