The consulting missions entrusted by the State to private firms will be capped in principle at 2 million euros from 2023, announced to AFP the Minister of Transformation and the Public Service Stanislas Guerini who promises “transparency” .
“A ceiling per mission of two million euros will be given, where in the previous system there was no particular ceiling per mission”, explained the former deputy, who must publish on Friday a new framework for appeal by the State to consulting firms for the period 2023-2027.
Limitation of the use of the same service provider
Services whose cost exceeds this ceiling will have to be the subject of a separate call for tenders, a procedure that the ministry hopes will be restrictive enough to convince the other portfolios to give up overly expensive missions.
The Minister also wishes to limit the use of the same private service provider to a maximum of two consecutive contracts. In the event that a service provider is chosen to carry out two missions in a row, their cumulative cost must not exceed the ceiling of 2 million euros. In a very critical report, two senators in March described the state’s use of consulting firms as a “sprawling” phenomenon.
The cost of most of the consultancy assignments identified by Eliane Assassi (CRCE group with a communist majority) and Arnaud Bazin (Les Républicains) generally amounted to tens or hundreds of thousands of euros, below the new ceiling of 2 million so.
226 million euros spent on consulting services between 2018 and 2022
The two parliamentarians tabled a bill in June largely inspired by their report, which the minister promises to also submit to the National Assembly, since he considers it “complementary” to the new framework about to be published. . In total, over the period 2018-2022, the State spent 226 million (excluding taxes) on consulting services “in strategy, organization and operational efficiency”, detailed Stanislas Guerini to AFP.
Under the new rules, the state wants to limit its consultancy spending to 150 million euros between 2023 and 2027, “with a maximum cap of 200 million euros in case of need”. The State will also undertake to publish “mission by mission” the amounts involved, the sponsor, the service provider and the title of the service, specified the member of the government. “If there must be non-publication, it is for reasoned reasons” such as “defense interests”, nuanced Stanislas Guerini.