Gov to stop outsourcing its most interesting work

The government is set to stop contracting out its most interesting and “challenging work and projects” as part of a plan to rebuild the capability of the Australian Public Service and reduce reliance on consultants.

In her first major speech as the minister for the public service, Katy Gallagher told an Institute of Public Administration Australia conference yesterday that there was “work to be done repairing years of neglect suffered by our public institutions.”

“Outsourcing, poor resourcing, clunky systems, and a decade of deliberate devaluing of the APS [Australian Public Service] has meant that the Australian people are looking at our institutions with a more jaundiced eye,” Gallagher said.

Not all work the government presently contracts out to consultancies is technology-related; however, tech is an area that has previously been scrutinised by Labor.

A Labor-led Senate inquiry last year recommended that the government end its unhealthy reliance on IT contractors and instead properly resource the APS to become a digital leader in its own right.

Gallagher said that in general, “too many resources [had] flowed away from the APS and towards contractors, consultants and labour-hire firms, decimating functions that should sit at the heart of a strong public service – like critical and creative thinking.”

“In some departments, the public service became more like an administrative service to ministers, with core work like policy development being shipped out to consultants,” she said.

An audit has been commissioned to understand the extent of outsourcing across the APS, and is being led by the department of finance and the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC).

“This audit will make it clear how temporary forms of employment, contracting and consulting are being used across the service,” Gallagher said.

“It was unsurprising to me that in coming into government there was no centrally held data on this information,” she said, adding the audit will be completed early next year.

Regardless of the outcome, the government intends to reduce its reliance on contractors and consultants, and particularly to keep interesting work in the hands of APS employees.

“Let’s not give away some of our most interesting work on evaluation, project management and strategy to the private sector,” Gallagher said.

Gallagher also said work is underway to develop what she called “an in-house consulting model for the APS”.

Through this, it’s envisioned that public servants would have “the opportunity to develop expertise further, build relationships, collaborate with colleagues, and challenge themselves in new ways”, by being able to “work across departments” on different projects.

The model appears to share some similarities with the existing APS mobility framework, which is intended to allow APS employees to lend their time or skills to projects in other agencies or areas to the one they work in.

Gallagher said the government expected to have at least part of its in-house consulting model ready for feedback by the end of the year.