Consulting firms: what missions has McKinsey carried out for the State?


The “omnipresence” of the consulting firm in certain institutions has been denounced by the senatorial commission of inquiry, which points to the lack of efficiency of certain missions.

McKinsey is not a state scandalwanted to evacuate government spokesman Gabriel Attal on Thursday. In any case, the government has been under fire from critics since the publication last week of the report of the Senate Committee on the influence of consulting firms on public policy. This one points the finger, in this detailed and explosive report, the excesses of recourse to these private firms in the management of political files of foreground. One firm is denounced in particular: McKinsey, which in addition to being accused of tax optimization in France, sees the interest of its missions for the State called into question.

The American cabinet is indeed at odds. During the health crisis, he is the one who won the largest proportion of state consulting expenses. According to the report, some 12.33 million euros were paid to him in total, in particular to orchestrate the French vaccination campaign. The firm then had four missions: to manage the logistical organization, to develop monitoring indicators, and to carry out sector analyzes and organize meetings.

This last mission did not always appeal to Santé Publique France, which McKinsey coached: the consulting firm organized two daily briefings six hours apart, without leaving, according to the agents, the ability to carry out actions that “take time“. The firm also carries out its assignments in rue de Ségur with complete discretion: its logo never appears on the “deliverables“, he borrows that of the Ministry of Health. A total of five different contracts will be signed to carry out this vaccination campaign, for a total of 10.6 million euros.

The Senate committee also criticizes the cabinet for having made a “directed arbitrationon the bonus/penalty file on unemployment insurance contributions. McKinsey’s arbitration file, billed at 327,060 euros, presents four scenarios but very clearly favors one. An example that raises fears, as the Senate report suggests, that the cabinets play a role that tramples on politics.

Interest not always obvious

But the state did not wait for the health crisis to use the services of McKinsey. Several sensitive reforms have been carried out with the support of the consulting firm, such as the implementation of the IT part of the reform of personalized housing assistance (APL). “Initially scheduled for January 1, 2019, the reform has been postponed several times due to CNAF’s IT shortcomings and then the health crisis. The Government then asked McKinsey to check the viability of the Caisse’s IT solutions“explains the Senate report. A contribution “necessary and decisive for the teams“, according to the Ministry of Territorial Cohesion, which will be invoiced via four different contracts for a total of 3.88 million euros.

The value of McKinsey’s benefits is not always so obvious, according to the Senate committee. She believes that the mission, which aimed to develop the strategy for securing the payment of support payments in 2019, denoted, despite a “good command of this type of analysis (quantitative and qualitative)“, a “lack of legal culture and more broadly of the public sectorfrom the firm’s employees. Their mission was however invoiced 260,880 euros.

Not possible to determine the direct consequences»

A year later, McKinsey takes on a new mission: to write a report on developments in the teaching profession, for nearly 500,000 euros. “Its main deliverable is a compilation, albeit substantial, of scientific work and graphics designed from public data.“, writes the commission. In addition, this report which was intended to help in the preparation of a symposium at Unesco will never demonstrate its usefulness: the symposium had been canceled due to the health crisis. The ministry thus admitted that it is not possible to determine the direct consequences of the report.

Similarly, McKinsey’s work with the National Old Age Insurance Fund (CNAV) in 2019 and 2020 to prepare for the pension reform did not materialize, since the reform in question was abandoned by the government. Despite everything, McKinsey’s mission cost the State 957,674 euros.

In total and according to the Senate report, the State spent in 2021 more than one billion euros in strategic and IT consulting, all firms combined. In detail, the consulting services of the ministries, which have more than doubled since 2018, accounted in 2021 for 893.9 million euros. In these 893.9 million, a distinction should be made between the services of strategy consulting firms (including McKinsey), which account for 445.6 million euros and mainly IT consulting, which accounts for 446.3 million euros. euros. In addition to this, there is a total of 171 million euros in advice to State operators.

The report does not specify what proportion of this sum was paid to McKinsey, but according to a review of consulting missions carried out by Le Monde, the American firm has received more than 60 million euros for various missions since 2015. The report also specifies that the McKinsey’s turnover on national territory reached 329 million euros in 2020, of which around 5% in the public sector“. That is around 16.5 million in 2020.



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