A recent ‘YOU GOV’ poll placed Tony Blair at ‘right of centre’ in the political lexicon, (quite correctly, though possibly for the first time) while at the same time the perception of his Chancellor of ten years, Gordon Brown, remains steadfastly left of centre. Given Brown’s ideological practice while in power this is an erroneous conclusion to say the least. Forget PFI and tax breaks for the obscenely wealthy and take a look at a less celebrated example of Brown’s supposedly left of centre bent.
The latest report from the Commons Public Accounts Committee (CAP) points out that spending on consultants in England has risen from £2.1 billion to £2.8 billion in the past three years. It concluded that huge sums are being paid out when civil servants could do the jobs just as well. (But could the 500,000 civil servants actually do it? Let’s come back to that.) The National Audit Office had earlier in the year reached similar conclusions to CAP.
It found that consultants were not passing on the necessary skills to permanent government staff. Ministers’ failure to ensure this was being carried out as a routine part of the contract ensured that consultants keep getting called back.
At the same time it found that Ministers allowed the consultants very free rein, with little instruction on what they were to achieve or in what time frame. Remarkably the habit is to pay consultants according to how long they spend on the project! Or putting it another way, they are handsomely paid whether they finish the job or not.
Imagine the media hue and cry if any other branch of industry conducted business in such a lax fashion? And remember all these extraordinary practices are taking place on the watch of the self-styled ‘prudent’ Chancellor.
It is perfectly true that this trend did not begin under the present government. But the introduction of consultants and much of what happened later was of course on Thatcher’s watch – still for many – the most right-wing PM for many a generation.
So what is our ‘left of centre’ Chancellor’s excuse especially as he and New Labour appeared so trenchant in their opposition to the use of consultants prior to 1997?
In August 1994, Dawn Primarolo, a Gordon Brown supporter, complained that NHS trusts had given the then huge sum of £66m to consultants. She was furious that money was being pocketed by men in flash suits when the ‘NHS had one of the lowest ratios of doctors to patients in Europe’. Labour would support hospital consultants not management consultants, she proclaimed.
Alan Milburn, from New Labour’s Blairite wing, was as angry.
He demanded an investigation into the employment of consultants that would force ministers to ‘come clean about how much money they have spent feathering the nests of a handful of consultancy firms’.
Very few listening to them would doubt that a Labour victory would herald a new era of financial rectitude. The rest is history. Labour won the 1997 election and unleashed an unprecedented feeding frenzy. Neil Glass, a retired consultant and co-author of a study of the plundering of the public sector by his former colleagues, said the best available figures showed the Tories spent about £500m a year on management and IT consultants. A decade on, and New Labour spent about £2bn a year on management consultants and another £5bn on IT consultants. Thus far.
But to focus merely on the ‘means’ is to miss the point.
As we have seen the consultants’ brief is ridiculously broad. It is also however deceptively straightforward. Bring competitive practices to the public sector and drive through New Labour’s ‘transformation agenda’. This is what the half million civil servants could not do. Prepare a public sector, of which they themselves are part, to be devoured by the private sector. And while CAP and others might caterwaul about the means (consultants), the objective, (the incremental privatisation of the heath service) say, is signed off with a flourish as good political value.
In the early 90’s the Thatcher regime was hugely embarrassed when an American entrepreneur, John De Lorean, who had persuaded Britain to subsidise his failing Belfast car manufacturing business, was caught in a sting by an FBI agent posing as a cocaine smuggler. Thatcher’s ministers accused the Arthur Andersen consultancy of failing to warn them that the car firm was about to go bust, and banned them from receiving any more public contracts.
Guess who lifted the ban on Arthur Andersen? Why none other than our new ‘left of centre’ PM Gordon Brown. And, almost needless to say, the Treasury has not held management consultants to account since. It looks like ‘YOU GOV’ has some more work to do.
A recent ‘YOU GOV’ poll placed Tony Blair at ‘right of centre’ in the political lexicon, (quite correctly, though possibly for the first time) while at the same time the perception of his Chancellor of ten years, Gordon Brown, remains steadfastly left of centre. Given Brown’s ideological practice while in power this is an erroneous conclusion to say the least. Forget PFI and tax breaks for the obscenely wealthy and take a look at a less celebrated example of Brown’s supposedly left of centre bent.
The latest report from the Commons Public Accounts Committee (CAP) points out that spending on consultants in England has risen from £2.1 billion to £2.8 billion in the past three years. It concluded that huge sums are being paid out when civil servants could do the jobs just as well. (But could the 500,000 civil servants actually do it? Let’s come back to that.) The National Audit Office had earlier in the year reached similar conclusions to CAP.
It found that consultants were not passing on the necessary skills to permanent government staff. Ministers’ failure to ensure this was being carried out as a routine part of the contract ensured that consultants keep getting called back.
At the same time it found that Ministers allowed the consultants very free rein, with little instruction on what they were to achieve or in what time frame. Remarkably the habit is to pay consultants according to how long they spend on the project! Or putting it another way, they are handsomely paid whether they finish the job or not.
Imagine the media hue and cry if any other branch of industry conducted business in such a lax fashion? And remember all these extraordinary practices are taking place on the watch of the self-styled ‘prudent’ Chancellor.
It is perfectly true that this trend did not begin under the present government. But the introduction of consultants and much of what happened later was of course on Thatcher’s watch – still for many – the most right-wing PM for many a generation.
So what is our ‘left of centre’ Chancellor’s excuse especially as he and New Labour appeared so trenchant in their opposition to the use of consultants prior to 1997?
In August 1994, Dawn Primarolo, a Gordon Brown supporter, complained that NHS trusts had given the then huge sum of £66m to consultants. She was furious that money was being pocketed by men in flash suits when the ‘NHS had one of the lowest ratios of doctors to patients in Europe’. Labour would support hospital consultants not management consultants, she proclaimed.
Alan Milburn, from New Labour’s Blairite wing, was as angry.
He demanded an investigation into the employment of consultants that would force ministers to ‘come clean about how much money they have spent feathering the nests of a handful of consultancy firms’.
Very few listening to them would doubt that a Labour victory would herald a new era of financial rectitude. The rest is history. Labour won the 1997 election and unleashed an unprecedented feeding frenzy. Neil Glass, a retired consultant and co-author of a study of the plundering of the public sector by his former colleagues, said the best available figures showed the Tories spent about £500m a year on management and IT consultants. A decade on, and New Labour spent about £2bn a year on management consultants and another £5bn on IT consultants. Thus far.
But to focus merely on the ‘means’ is to miss the point.
As we have seen the consultants’ brief is ridiculously broad. It is also however deceptively straightforward. Bring competitive practices to the public sector and drive through New Labour’s ‘transformation agenda’. This is what the half million civil servants could not do. Prepare a public sector, of which they themselves are part, to be devoured by the private sector. And while CAP and others might caterwaul about the means (consultants), the objective, (the incremental privatisation of the heath service) say, is signed off with a flourish as good political value.
In the early 90’s the Thatcher regime was hugely embarrassed when an American entrepreneur, John De Lorean, who had persuaded Britain to subsidise his failing Belfast car manufacturing business, was caught in a sting by an FBI agent posing as a cocaine smuggler. Thatcher’s ministers accused the Arthur Andersen consultancy of failing to warn them that the car firm was about to go bust, and banned them from receiving any more public contracts.
Guess who lifted the ban on Arthur Andersen? Why none other than our new ‘left of centre’ PM Gordon Brown. And, almost needless to say, the Treasury has not held management consultants to account since. It looks like ‘YOU GOV’ has some more work to do.