The digital transformation of the State is a growth lever for consulting firms. McKinsey, for example, received 4 million euros for its contribution to the reform of personalized housing assistance (APL). However, it is not the main beneficiary on the digital side.
A Senate report in March 2022 pinpointed the ministries and what it considered to be an excessive taste for consulting services. These expenses were estimated at 279.4 million euros in 2018. In 2021, they soared to 646.4 million. They are even higher.
State progress driven by current events
The Court of Auditors is in turn interested, as in 2015, in “recourse by the State to the intellectual services of consulting firms.” It confirms a tripling of expenditure between 2017 and 2021, while deeming it “limited in relation to its total expenditure.”
The Court establishes a different figure than that of the Commission of Inquiry. For 2021, expenditure is estimated at €890 million. Of this total, nearly three-quarters concern the IT field, and in particular the carrying out of program development work
The report notes that shortcomings identified as early as 2015 persist. And if progress is to be noted, “the most significant advances have been made in the very recent period, under the pressure of the news.”
And the improvements forget, among other things, the budgetary and accounting data, “are always imprecise”. This is not the only fault of the government and its administration. The Court thus emphasizes that this option of outsourcing was taken without prior definition of a “harmonized framework” or development of a “sufficiently precise employment doctrine.”
Inventory of internal resources not very rigorous
“Furthermore, for lack of a single management system and appropriate monitoring tools, the State has not put itself in a position to conduct a coherent and controlled policy of recourse to external services, on the basis of a definition orderly needs and a rigorous inventory of available internal resources”, she still judges.
The Court of Auditors also considers that the conclusion of consultancy contracts fell under the “easy solution” period. As for the evolution of expenditure, it is more a consequence than a decision. It was “more observed and suffered than chosen and anticipated”, as the Court describes it.
A circular from the Prime Minister of 2022 must now regulate the expenses of advice. For the sages of rue Cambon, these measures “came late.” Nevertheless, they consider that they “are likely to remedy in part” the observations made in his report.
The 2022 circular will not be enough
The Court welcomes the “awareness, at the interministerial level, of the excesses.” However, the state will have to go further. The establishment of a fixed target for reducing the amount of expenditure? A “palliative”, retort the magistrates.
A finer approach to needs must follow. The circular and its provisions need to be supplemented. The policy of using consulting firms will only be effective if it is more formalized and its management reinforced.
The Court defends the possibility for the State to use these services, but on condition that they are supervised. It thus recommends that “these services only intervene in a subsidiary way, for specific missions and in circumstances and conditions of rigor and better defined transparency.”