Eye-watering cost of advice: How much Allan Labor government has spent on its consultants revealed

An Allan government department has spent tens of millions of dollars on consultants — including nearly $300,000 on analysing the gender pay gap — with taxpayers set to foot the huge bill.

Premier Jacinta Allan. Picture: NewsWire

Victorian treasury bureaucrats are relying on a soaring number of external consultants and racking up a multimillion dollar bill amid the state’s worsening economic crisis.

The Herald Sun can reveal finance boffins have planned to more than triple the spend on external consultants this financial year to a staggering $36m, up from $10.3m last year.

The Department of Treasury and Finance has spent tens of millions of dollars on obtaining financial advice from private consultants over the past two years.

In the 2022-2023 financial year, the department spent a whopping $26.3m on consultants, across 65 projects, including $9m for advice on privatising the license and registration division of VicRoads.

Among the expenses last year included $300,000 on analysis of the gender pay gap and more than $230,000 on town planning and design services, with hundreds of thousands more spent on “commercial and transaction advice”.

A Victorian government spokesman has defended the mammoth spend on private consultants by Victorian Labor. Picture: NewsWire

The huge spend could see taxpayers fork out more than $70m for private consultants – including financial experts – engaged by the Allan government’s own department of finance over just three years.

Opposition finance spokesman Bridget Vallence slammed the government for racking up a multimillion private consultancy bill while net debt is projected to soar to $187.3 billion in 2027-28 – an increase of $54bn in the next three years.

“With billion dollar blowouts on infrastructure projects and public sector wages each year,

paying more and more to consultants is clearly not working,” she said.

“Victoria’s net debt is equivalent to $19,085 for every Victorian – a disgraceful legacy of the

Allan Labor government”.

A Victorian government spokesman defended the mammoth spend on private consultants, noting that total expenditure last year was almost $16m less than the previous year.

“Like all governments, we use consultants when highly specialised services or advice is required to ensure that Victorians are getting value-for-money on the projects they voted for,” he said.

Originally published as Eye-watering cost of advice: How much Allan Labor government has spent on its consultants revealed