Are DFID's consultants a waste of money?
Posted on 29 January 2006
When the word "consultant" is mentioned, what do you think of? Is it the highly-paid doctor who mainly takes private work and disappears off to the golf club three times a week? Or is it the well-dressed hot-shot who spends a couple of weeks in your office, types a not-very-useful report full of buzz-words, and leaves with a huge cheque?
There's a stereotype that goes with the word, and so perhaps it's unhelpful that DFID uses "consultants" to talk about bringing in expertise to help development. International Development Secretary Hilary Benn says that "Dfid's spending on consultants, as a proportion of our total aid programme, has halved since 1997 to just 5%". It's not something he should be proud of. If we are going to make serious strides in improving governance and institutions in developing countries, there is a good case for needing to spend a lot more on consultants: lawyers out in the field helping to formalise property rights, for example.
Employing consultants enables DFID to be more flexible than if it employed everyone in-house, letting it quickly bring in new expertise when priorities change. Free from the responsibilities of employing people directly, the use of consultants probably actually saves the taxpayer a considerable amount of cash.