Greens question Treasury spend-up on consultants

Over the last two-and-a-half years, Treasury has employed the services of 200 consultants costing taxpayers $13.8 million, Green Party Co-leader Russel Norman revealed today.

"Treasury has spent an average of $6.6 million a year on external consultants in the first two years of the National Government. This is more than double the average annual spend under the previous Labour Government," said Dr Norman.

The figures were uncovered through a series of parliamentary questions lodged by Dr Norman.

"Despite the Government's rhetoric about searching for efficiency gains in the public sector, Treasury has spent up big on consultants," said Dr Norman.

"The one government department telling all others to tighten their belts has seen its budget grow by 25 percent since 2008, in large part driven by the large growth in the use of external consultants.

Approximately one-third of the expenditure on external consultants has been attributed to work on the Crown Deposit Guarantee Scheme.

"Given the Auditor-General's recent findings that Treasury dropped the ball on the management of the Crown Deposit Guarantee Scheme - a $133 billion potential taxpayer liability - it's timely to question Treasury's use of external consultants," said Dr Norman.

"Would the money have been better spent employing staff internally to manage the Scheme?

"Greater resources within Treasury should have focused on limiting the Crown's exposure to risk under the Deposit Guarantee rather than on the Government's priority of preparing state-owned assets for fire-sale."

Dr Norman said further investigation of Treasury's use of consultants was needed to determine whether Treasury was lacking essential internal capacity, or if there was a developing culture of excessive reliance on expensive outside consultants.

A list of the 200 external consultants employed by Treasury since January 1, 2009:

http://www.greens.org.nz/sites/default/files/treasury_consultant_spend_green_party_research.pd