Premier Jay Weatherill has established a high-level unit of fixers to reduce public service spending on consultants and cut through bureaucratic resistance to change.
The unit in his department was quietly established a week ago and is headed up by former Public Service Employment Commissioner Warren McCann.
The “Internal Consultancy Group” is designed to replace a range of services currently out-sourced to consultants. However, it will also help departments to make difficult but necessary changes to the way they operate.
Weatherill told InDaily the State Government spent too much on external consultancies – about $20 million a year.
“During the election campaign we committed to reducing expenditure on non-service consultants and contractors 10 per cent,” he said.
“And while governments of all persuasions use consultancies for a number of reasons, it is also something that I believe we should do a lot more of by utilising the existing public service.”
As well as replacing consultants, the group will try to develop greater expertise within the public service and help with complex issues such as departmental mergers and restructures.
McCann told InDaily the group wouldn’t replace all consultancies – specialised expertise in major project delivery, for example, would still need to be brought in.
However, he was confident that building on and utilising internal expertise would save costs in the long run.
“Over time, we will have the opportunity to develop a cohort of highly skilled analysts across the public service,” he said.
He said the group would be engaged by departments to solve problems that could not be tackled through “traditional departmental processes”.
He argues that his advantage over external consultancies is that he has a close understanding of the public service in South Australia, allowing his group to break through barriers and anticipate problems.
“We have an intimate knowledge of how the system works,” he said. “It’s a very complex beast and you have to know what you’re dealing with – when to tickle its belly and when to skin it.”
One of the group’s first jobs will be to help departments and ministers tackle the enormous task of deciding which of the government’s 400-plus boards and committees should be kept and which should be abolished – a wide-ranging review announced by Weatherill last week.
The Internal Consultancy Group will create analytical framework for decisions on whether to keep or jettison committees and boards.
McCann said the group would also provide advice for making change happen – including cutting through public-sector conservatism.
He believes “there will be push back from ministers in some cases”.
“The system is inherently conservative and inherently resistant to change,” he said.
“We won’t only give a technical solution – we’ll provide the pathway to achieve the result that’s being sought.”
The core group will employ eight to 10 people, with public service officers being seconded for specific projects.
