AGC playbook guides federal agencies on how to manage external consultants
As well as its own advisory engagements, the Australian government’s in-house consulting arm has been guiding federal agencies on how to manage external consultants, and their slippery tactics.
Distributed last year but now publicly available thanks to a Freedom of Information (FoI) request pursued by the Canberra Times, the Australian Government Consulting (AGC) ‘playbook’ provides best practices for managing the life-cycle of projects.
Most notably however, one section includes a warning that the experienced senior consultant selling the company wares is unlikely to be one of those spending much time on the project itself, but may be back for the “sell-on” after getting their foot in the door.
Better known as “land and expand” in industry-speak, the AGC playbook notes that “after spending time in your organisation, ‘the consultant’ may share their views about further work.” While this likely unsolicited pitch might provide valuable insights, the recipient is urged to ask “probing questions” while listening closely so as to understand the problem that is trying to be resolved.
As to the initial pitch, the playbook cautions: “Senior people (usually ‘partners’ or ‘principals’) are typically involved in multiple projects at once, and are also required to cultivate new clients and win business. Consultancies can increase the project profit-margin by reducing the demands on senior people in favour of consultants with less experience.”
Subtitled ‘Mastering engagement with external consultants to achieve value for money and build APS capability”, the AGC playbook is a supplement to the government’s APS Strategic Commissioning Framework, but comes across as somewhat patronising and faintly ridiculous in its occasional depiction of wide-eyed procurement officers duped by predatory outsiders.
It may just be a reflection of the tone and style of language adopted for internal APS communications, but it’s doubtful anyone involved in multi-million dollar public decision-making is blind to the up-selling tactics of big consulting. Well, at least hopefully, otherwise the government has much bigger problems to solve than first anticipated.
Rather, a combination of other factors seem more likely to be the cause for any suggestion of previously wasteful procurement practices, not the least of which is department leaders being so understaffed and overwhelmed under the last government – again proposing to slash 45,000 APS jobs – that they just farmed out everything as quickly as possible to get the job done.
Other, non-libellous, issues might include the relationships built between in-house decision-makers and external providers, a better-the-devil-you-know approach to extending contracts, and the revolving door between the APS and consulting industry as to previously-established relationships. A quick look at ‘insider’ discussions on Reddit confirms a mix of those factors to be the probable case.
One point however, most of the guidance forwarded in the AGC playbook should be extraneous, given the Strategic Commissioning Framework, stating: “Your agency must manage any conflicts of interest and/or probity issues where a consultant provides advice on additional work, and consider the consequences of a supplier working above and below the line on a given project.”
