Plundering the Public Sector review

Wendy M Grossman ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 04 Aug 2006

Tony Blair's Labour government has spent around £10 billion on consultants between 1997, when it came to power, and the end of 2005. That's according to Richard Brooks, who covers public sector mishaps for Private Eye, and David Craig, a recovering consultant. Craig is also author of last year's career-ending Rip-Off!, in which he exposed many shady practices that he claims are common among management consultants.

In Plundering the Public Sector, the authors estimate that the Labour government has spent another £50 billion on IT systems consultants and at least another £15 billion on IT systems -- probably more. Project after project has overrun both budget and schedule. And just think of the billions the ID card will cost. But aren't consultants supposed to ensure that money is spent wisely rather than stupidly?

Co-authors usually try to make their contributions seamless, but in Plundering the Public Sector the voices are easily distinguishable. Brooks does the heavy lifting with facts, figures and snafus, while Craig basically rehashes his previous book with few new revelations. The consequence is that the book contradicts itself throughout. Are civil servants intelligent, independent consultants-in-residence, being ousted by highly paid interlopers unschooled in the ways of public service? Or are they naïve incompetents who know nothing about IT and are easily bamboozled by fast-talking salesmen? The book presents both views without reconciling them.

So if you're looking for an exposé of management consulting, either because it's fun or because you want to protect yourself from fraud, read David Craig's earlier book; it has more detail about his own experience and the shady practices he observed. It would have been useful if he had followed Brooks's lead and done some new research for this book to determine whether the practices he describes are endemic. Are all management consultants crooks? Has nothing good ever come out of consulting? It seems unlikely, however entertaining these notions are.

But if you're seeking to understand how the public sector works, or why and how large projects fail, then this book is for you. Although the demands of business are not -- as Plundering the Public Sector makes clear -- the same as those of public service, the basic reasons why large projects fail are the same: wrong technology; misconceptions about how people actually work; poorly chosen goals and targets; designs that deliver results that customers (or citizens) hate.

Stories about the plight of the new NHS IT system have proliferated, and the last few weeks have seen leaked memos containing warnings from the civil service that the ID card scheme will fail. This was particularly startling since most people believe that the ID card and national register were policies dear to the heart of the civil service. This book contains a hint of why civil servants may not now be so keen: they may not appreciate being bypassed in favour of their more expensive external brethren.

Still, the civil servants do have options: as Brooks documents, they can always escape to the private consultancy sector and trouser the fat cheques themselves.

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