As I revealed over the weekend, Bill English’s own purchase advisor Graham Scott decided not to charge for his services because he hadn’t identified any savings and had argued that “It wasn’t as if there was a whole lot of fat there I could advise them to get rid of.” He also claimed that the government was a regular client, which got me wondering just who else has been engaging his services and what for.
I asked written questions of each Minister as to whether any department or agency they are responsible for had engaged Dr Scott in the past 12 months or intended to engage him in the next 12 months. Bill English provided the most comprehensive answers:
Yes. Dr Scott was engaged by Treasury to provide purchase advice services to the Treasury and Minister of Finance, ending 30 June 2009. For the past 6 months, Dr Scott has been the Chair of the Regulatory Responsibility Taskforce, which was established to provide independent advice on the Regulatory Responsibility Bill. The Taskforce will be reporting back to Ministers English and Hide on 30 September. This Taskforce is funded through a non-departmental output expense within Vote Finance.
Dr Scott has extensive experience of a wide range of public management issues, here and overseas, and is always likely to be in demand by Government departments, but I am not aware of any specific intentions to engage his services.
Most other ministers simply answered ‘no’ which was to be expected. However a small number (Power, Guy, Williamson) dodged the question by answering along the lines that decisions on which consultants to engage were a matter for the chief executive. However in the case of purchase advisors clearly that’s not the case. Ministers directed departments who to engage and how much to pay them. What, if anything, are these ministers hiding?
Now to be clear, I don’t have a problem with departments using the services of people such as Dr Scott, but transparency is important, particularly where due process hasn’t been followed. The public service has a wide range of skills and expertise available ‘in house’ and decisions to engage outside consultants should, in my view, be made only where absolutely necessary. In each case the taxpayer is entitled to ask “Is there nobody already on the payroll who could do this task?” In the case of the purchase advisors I think there was/is.
Tomorrow’s Herald: “Scott says no fat in public service. Finance Minister Bill English’s hand picked purchase advisor, former Treasury high flyer Graham Scott, has told him that there is not a lot of fat in the public service to get rid of, undermining a central plank of National’s election campaign that cuts to the bloated public service bureaucracy would fund improved front line services.” Too wordy for a Tui billboard?
I wonder if any purchase advisors were sent to work in the police or military. Thats two organisations who are largely unaccountable for their spending due to the rigid hierarchies.
But I suppose we have the usual ‘experts’ who have all the answers for health education or social welfare but little knowledge of either