‘Scandalous’ £3.4bn UK state spending on private consultants last year

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/31/uk-government-private-consultants-spending

Posted by topotaul

3 Comments

  1. This may or may not be bad.

    Reality is, the civil service simply can not have the skillset it needs within its ranks, and that is perfectly acceptable and frankly good. You’re creating a new IT system. You’re going to want the best people available to do that. They will not be working for the civil service, because their skillset is worth far more than the civil service can afford to keep on staff.

    So you bring in contractors to work the 18 month project. You have to pay near market rate (lol jk, pay is shit and they don’t get the best contractors), and boot them when the project is complete.

    We all need plumbers and electricians at some point. We don’t have them on retainer, we hire them when we need them.

  2. It’s August. Many reporters are on vacation. Publications are desperate for hits. The easiest way to get hits right now is to stretch ordinary boring government math to make people who are flawed but reasonably well meaning sound like the worst people ever.

    Whatever those people are actually doing wrong is probably a lot too complicated to be good August vacation week clickbait.