Eight Deloitte executives embedded in QLD Health, with firm also contracted to run Covid-19 jab program

A major consultancy firm has revealed it has eight executives embedded within Queensland Health, with a regular flow of staff between the two bodies.

Former Queensland Health director-general Shaun Drummond did a stint at Deloitte.

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A major consultancy firm has revealed it has eight executives embedded within Queensland Health, as the department confirmed it calls in external advisers an average of about 15 times a year.

The news comes as a Queensland-based governance expert warns the increasing use of consultants across the nation’s governments risks a “systemic hollowing out” of the public sector, and increases accountability and ethical risks.

Queensland Health confirmed it had engaged consultancies 15 times a year on average since 2020-21, including to plan and manage the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine – a contract worth more than $3m awarded to Deloitte.

Consultants were engaged by Queensland Health 11 times in 2020-21, 20 in 2021-22 and at least 15 in 2022-23.

While the department could not provide data on how many consultants were embedded within the organisation, so called “big four” firms KPMG and Ernst & Young signalled they had none working within Queensland Health.

Recently ousted PwC did not respond.

But Deloitte confirmed it had eight employees seconded to state government, all of whom were within Queensland Health.

It can also be revealed Queensland’s “vaccine command centre” during Covid-19 was led by a Deloitte executive seconded as part of the more than $3m contract.

A Queensland Health spokesman said it occasionally engaged consultants with “specialist or technical skills not readily available to the department and to support emerging needs, such as the Covid-19 pandemic”.

He also said “external consultants, especially those who have worked with Queensland Health previously, are also adept at commencing roles rapidly and capably”.

Griffith University foundation dean of law and Accountability Round Table board member Charles Sampford said the use of consultancies risked a “systemic hollowing out” of the public sector.

It was a sentiment also voiced by Professor Peter Coaldrake in his 2022 review into the culture and accountability of the public sector.

Prof Coaldrake warned that the habit of outsourcing work to consultancy firms would erode the capabilities of the public service.

Prof Samford said the increased use of consultancies also posed a value-for-money issue, with growing contracts in turn creating a “perverse incentive” for public servants to defect to the sector – creating a liability for accountability and higher costs.

Analysis of the recent work history of top-ranking Queensland Health and hospital and health service bureaucrats revealed that at least five had left the department to work at a consultancy firm since mid-2021, all to Deloitte.

Former Queensland Health director-general Shaun Drummond, who resigned last month, had worked at Deloitte for seven months before returning in January last year.