Public servant union welcomes govt plan to bring consulting work in-house

The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has welcomed the Federal Government’s plan to reduce its outsourcing of consulting work and shift to an in-house consulting model.

Federal minister for the public service Katy Gallagher said in a speech at an Institute of Public Administration Australia conference last week that the Federal Government is working to develop an in-house consulting model for the Australian Public Service (APS) “to strengthen core capabilities and functions” that have been contracted out.

“An in-house consulting model will give public servants the opportunity to develop expertise further, build relationships, collaborate with colleagues, and challenge themselves in new ways,” Gallagher said.

“It can create opportunities to work across departments to help support our vision for one APS.”

Gallagher added the Australian Public Service Commission’s (APSC) central capability development program, the APS Academy, will play an important role in the plan alongside the in-house consulting model.

In its announcement on Thursday, the CPSU stated that the current outsourcing arrangements “come at a huge cost to the taxpayer” but “fundamentally undermine” the capacity of the APS and lack transparency and accountability.

“There is an extraordinary level of skill right across the APS, but currently that isn’t being used well enough,” CPSU national secretary Melissa Donnelly said.

“For far too long we have seen the government outsource the same sort of work time and time again, rather than utilising the APS and the huge skillset that already exists within it.”

Donnelly added that the work that could be done in-house had been farmed out to private firms at a huge cost to the taxpayer.

“It is immensely frustrating for talented and capable public servants to have work they could be doing and work they want to be doing, being outsourced right before their eyes.”

“There will be detail to work through but what we do know is that there is capacity across the APS to do this work in-house and rebuild the skills and expertise of the public sector as we go about doing that.”

The CPSU stated that it and its members have been pushing for this reform and have warned of the “wasteful use of taxpayer money” on outsourced contractors and consultants. The union also recommended the establishment of in-house consulting in a 2021 enquiry into the capability of the APS.

In her speech, Gallagher said that there was work to be done in “repairing years of neglect suffered” by Australia’s public institutions.

“Outsourcing, poor resourcing, clunky systems, and a decade of deliberate devaluing of the APS has meant that the Australian people are looking at our institutions with a more jaundiced eye,” Gallagher said.

“Too many resources flowed away from the APS and towards contractors, consultants and labour-hire firms, decimating functions that should sit at the heart of a strong public service – like critical and creative thinking.

“In some departments, the public service became more like an administrative service to ministers, with core work like policy development being shipped out to consultants.”

Gallagher added that an audit into the APS has been started by the Department of Finance and the APSC to shed light into how temporary forms of employment, contracting and consulting were being used across the service. The audit is expected to be completed in early 2023.

“Let’s not give away some of our most interesting work on evaluation, project management and strategy to the private sector,” she said.