Consulting companies: the government will limit the cost of missions

The consulting missions entrusted by the State to private consultants will in principle have a cap of 2 million euros from 2023, the Minister of Public Transformation, Stanislas Guerini, announced to AFP, who promises “transparency”.

“There is going to be a permit cap of two million euros, where in the previous system there was no particular permit cap,” explained the member of the Government, who is due to publish on Friday a new framework for recourse by the State to the consultants for the period 2023-2027.

a high threshold

Services costing more than this cap will have to be the subject of a separate call for tenders, a procedure the ministry hopes will be restrictive enough to convince ministries to give up too 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 maximum limit of 2 million euros.

In a highly critical report, two senators in March described the state’s use of consulting firms as a “spreading” phenomenon.

Le coût de la plupart des missions de conseil recensées par Eliane Assassi (groupe CRCE à majorité communiste) et Arnaud Bazin (Les Républicains) is chiffrait en règle générale in dizaines or centaines de milliers d’euros, in dessous du nouveau plafond de 2 million Then.

More transparency

In June, the two parliamentarians presented a bill largely inspired by their report, which the minister promises to also present to the National Assembly, since he considers it “complementary” to the new framework that is about to be published.

In total, during the 2018-2022 period, the State spent 226 million (without taxes) on consulting services “in strategy, organization and operational efficiency,” explained Stanislas Guerini.

Under the new rules, the State wants to limit its consulting spending to 150 million euros between 2023 and 2027, “with a maximum cap 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, the government member specified. “If there must be a non-publication, it is for reasoned reasons” such as “defense interests”, qualifies Stanislas Guerini.