Consulting firms: on the grill of the Senate commission of inquiry, Amélie de Montchalin promises lower spending


Some explanations from the Minister of Transformation and Public Service on the management of the health crisis did not convince the senators.

Does the state make excessive use of the analyzes of private consulting firms? This is the question around which revolve the members of the “Commission of Inquiry into the Growing Influence of Private Consulting Firms on Public Policy“. Over the course of their hearings in the Senate, they are trying in particular to determine whether they have played too important a role in certain sequences of the management of the health crisis. Faced with these questions, the Minister of Transformation and Public Service Amélie de Montchalin was heard on Wednesday.

The debate on consulting firms is “often the subject of simplistic shortcuts in public debate“, regretted Amélie de Montchalin. She felt, however, that it was necessaryrecognize that such recourse has sometimes been too systematic and deserves to be framed and considered“. Thus, the minister promised that the expenses of the ministries with the cabinets would drop by 15% in 2022, confirming remarks made the same morning on Europe 1. A circular, expected at Matignon, must see the light of day soon to better frame these collaborations. Missions “pro bono“, suspected of turning into a mission later, will have to be framed. Before soliciting a firm, the administration must also be able to justify that it does not have enough qualified people internally to fulfill the mission in question.

If Amélie de Montchalin also made a point of emphasizing that “in this quinquennium, consulting expenses have not increased“, these new framework proposals challenged the deputies. If measures must be taken, it is because they did not exist before, thus implied Éliane Assassi, senator from Seine-Saint-Denis and rapporteur for the commission. The Minister was asked to explain several missions granted to private firms. One in particular attracted attention: a contract concluded with the firm McKinsey, for an amount of 496,000 euros, the aim of which is to obtain a “assessment of changes in the teaching profession“.

Amélie de Montchalin thus specified that this mission should feed “an important jobby the Minister of Education, which was to culminate in April 2020 in a symposium on the future of the teaching profession. Except that this conference was canceled due to the health crisis and never rescheduled. It was, however, used to produce a report on “21st century teacher“, presented to the college of France in December 2021, wanted to argue the minister.

SEE ALSO – Health crisis: Amélie de Montchalain justified the use of the State to private consulting firms on January 14, 2021

140 million euros between 2018 and 2020

In concrete terms, the annual expenditure of the Interministerial Directorate for Public Transformation (DITP), which the ministry oversees, is “around 20 million per year“, indicates to AFP the cabinet of Amélie de Montchalin. The DGME, ancestor of the DITP, spent each yeardoubleduring the Sarkozy presidency, we are assured by the same source.

Over the period 2018-2020, the consulting expenses of all the ministries amounted to an annual average of 140 million euros, further details the ministry. “I will never fall into populism which would consist of saying ‘never, never’, the State would not need to seek an external vision, to seek a specific skill that it does not have“, had also declared Amélie de Montchalin on Europe 1. “The reform of the senior civil service will enable us to recruit experts, create internal consulting firms and do internally what was sometimes delegated to other“.

The subject of the state’s use of consulting firms has gained visibility since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic. According to figures put forward by MP Véronique Louwagie (LR) in February 2021, the Ministry of Health signed 28 contracts between March 2020 and January 2021 for a total of 11.353 million euros with seven consulting firms, as part of management of the health crisis.

Hearing Tuesday in the Senate, representatives of McKinsey, an American firm which had signed contracts with the Ministry of Health for four million euros, defended themselves from any decision-making role, in particular in the definition of the French vaccine policy. A vision also hammered out by Laurent Benarousse, partner at Roland Berger, Gilles Bonnenfant and Claudia Montero, from Eurogroup Consulting, as well as Guillaume Charlin and Jean-Christophe Gard from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), during their hearing this Wednesday. “Does the system work well? I think so“, thus supported Laurent Benarousse.



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