The use of the consulting firm McKinsey by the government created controversy before the presidential election. The shock wave prompted the executive to look into their case. Now, the missions entrusted by the State to private consulting firms will in principle be capped at 2 million euros from 2023, announced the Minister of Public Transformation Stanislas Guerini who promises “transparency”.
The State will also undertake to publish “mission by mission” the amounts involved, the sponsor and the nature of the service, specified the member of the government. “If there must be non-publication, it is for reasoned reasons” such as “defense interests”, nuanced Stanislas Guerini.
Two consecutive contracts
Services whose cost exceeds this ceiling will have to be the subject of a separate call for tenders, a procedure that the ministry hopes will be restrictive enough to convince the ministries to give up overly onerous missions. The Minister also wishes to limit the use of the same private service provider to a maximum of two consecutive contracts. In the event that a service provider is chosen to carry out two missions in a row, their cumulative cost must not exceed the ceiling of 2 million euros.
In a very critical report, two senators had described in March the use by the State of consulting firms as a “sprawling” phenomenon. The cost of most of the consultancy assignments identified by Eliane Assassi (CRCE group with a communist majority) and Arnaud Bazin (Les Républicains) generally amounted to tens or hundreds of thousands of euros, below the new ceiling of 2 million so.
226 million euros
The two parliamentarians tabled a bill in June largely inspired by their report, which the minister promises to also submit to the National Assembly, since he considers it “complementary” to the new framework about to be published. . In total, over the period 2018-2022, the State spent 226 million (excluding taxes) on consulting services “in strategy, organization and operational efficiency”, detailed Stanislas Guerini.
Under the new rules, the State wants to limit its consultancy expenditure to 150 million euros between 2023 and 2027, “with a maximum ceiling of 200 million euros if necessary”. The State will also undertake to publish “mission by mission” the amounts involved, the sponsor, the service provider and the title of the service, specified the member of the government.