If consultancy budgets were delivered by Robin Hood

After a couple of near-fatal incidents with the Today programme (tip: don’t listen while bathing or ironing), I have decided that this year I will abandon anger and instead adopt a Zen-like calm when confronted with the daft things people say about consultancy.

I achieved this revelation a week or so ago while listening to David Cameron repeating George Osborne’s pledge to freeze council tax by halving government spending on consultancy. I could feel my arteries hardening when a quiet voice from within said “No. Do not struggle. Go with the flow.”

As I relaxed, a vision swam before my eyes: dressed as Robin Hood and his Merry Men (Osborne looking particularly fetching in green tights), Dave and his cohorts roll up before the Palace of Westminster. “Deliver up ye consultancy budget!” cries Dave, whereupon all manner of gold-stuffed chests and jewel boxes are brought forth. “I shall take half to distribute to the good people of the Shires,” says Dave. “The rest ye may spend as ye please.”

Now it obviously wouldn’t happen quite like this, the consultancy budget being a somewhat chimerical beast. But imagine if there was one. What a world. On the one hand, you’d have this enormous pile of money to dip into whenever you pleased. On the other, you’d have all these government departments with money earmarked for consultancy. Anxious phone calls would go out to consultancies: “Look, I’ve got all this money left in the budget. About a quarter of a million. Is there anything you can do for us?”

Of course it wouldn’t work like that. There is no “consultancy budget”. That money doesn’t even exist. (But I do like this kind of economics. My wife recently discovered that some prints by an artist she liked were being marked up by £100 or even £200 by a well-known auction house. I said that clearly we should buy the one the auctioneers were overcharging the most for, as that would give us £200 to spend on other things).

So how would this work in practice? Once the new government realised that there was no consultancy budget as such, rather a series of devolved decisions by individual departments, they would have a number of choices. One might be to set up a central clearing house for consultancy projects, in effect requiring each one to be sold twice. I suspect they might go for a simpler course, which would be to issue an edict that whatever you spent last year, this year you should spend half.

Now, look at the magic that has happened here. Suddenly, out of nowhere consultancy budgets really have appeared. People would not only have a set figure, but a fixed period in which to spend it.

OK, the Tories think they are being draconian. But in an industry that’s used to individual sector markets going away altogether, having 50% of historic expenditure guaranteed and ring-fenced is something of a result. It would of course be desperately unfair—departments that had just gone through major change programmes would get another wedge they didn’t need, while those that were overdue for transformation would have no history of spending and get nothing.

It’s also not exactly the best way to do consultancy. Any sane client would view the opportunity to undertake an unnecessary consultancy project with as much relish as the gift of a free course of chemotherapy. But maybe consultants really would have to gear themselves up for the casual public sector shopper. Client-friendly websites? It could happen.

It would of course be deeply ironic, that, just as the Management Consultancies Association was patiently trying to construct its case for the value of consultancy, the public sector was really nudged in