Quote:
Originally Posted by Itshim
Can't comment on you but in the past found consultants a costly solution.  |
Consultants are not the answer to every problem, but they can save much more money than they cost but you do however need to employ the right one.
I suppose if you are not going to use consultants to deal with a particular issue requiring specific skills, the other option is to hire and fire when the work is done and the specific skill is no longer required. (Too late Labour is closing that loophole allegedly)
Consultants can be the only solution as the civil service seems to be generally very short of technical expertise. The civil service has some departments with very clever people, but they struggle to fill these sorts of posts and to retain, as the excellent benefits such as workload and pension are generally not enough to overcome the low pay.
If you are tasking a large company to undertake a small package of a week or so of investigative work followed by a report, you are not going to get much change out of £50k. If you are employing a consultant who knows his subject, you don't need to avoid many such unnecessary activities for him to save you money. Prime contractors are more than happy to undertake any work a civil servant tasks them with, whether necessary or not.