Jackie Trad’s public service razor gang: consultants paid to cut consultants

Jackie Trad’s razor gang has $10m to pay consultants to advise how to slash spending on consultants.

Queensland Deputy Premier and Treasurer Jackie Trad. Picture: AAP

Queensland Treasurer Jackie Trad’s public service razor gang has a two-year budget of $10m to pay consultants to advise how to slash the government’s spending on consultants.

The Australian reported on Thursday that the Service Priority Review Office had already blown its initial budget and missed an early deadline, after engaging major consultancy PwC on how to cut $200m from the state’s ­bureaucracy this financial year.

PwC’s Nicole Scurrah, once chief of staff to former Labor premier Anna Bligh, is embedded in the government’s executive building three days a week as part of the contract.

READ MORE: Palaszczuk appears to have misplaced former chief of staff David Barbagallo’s original resignation letter | Jackie Trad’s razor gang blows own budget on hired help

A spokesman for Ms Trad confirmed­ that the rest of the major ­accountancy and consult­ancy firms had been asked to tender­ for other work for the razor gang. These firms include KPMG, which employs another former chief of staff of Ms Bligh, Mike Kaiser, as a partner.

Deputy Premier Ms Trad conceded the concept of employing extra consultants to advise on cutting back on consultants sounded “really weird” but again defended the decision. “I know that sounds really weird, but I do have to say, we want external expertise to help us do this job, so I’m really confid­ent about the team we’ve got, that’s ­allocated to looking at how we’re spending Queensland taxpayer dollars better,” Ms Trad told ABC Radio Brisbane.

“The level of consultants’ fees is too high and we’re looking to ­reduce it.” The government spends an estimated $1.5bn on consultants and contractors each year, on top of more than 40 per cent of the budget that pays for public service wages and expenses.

Ms Trad’s spokesman said the Service Priority Review Office was established to find $1.7bn of cuts over four years, without any forced redundancies in the bureaucracy.

“The SPRO has a budget of $10m over two years. That equates to 0.588 per cent of the targeted savings,” the spokesman said.

Only part of the $10m budget will be spent on employing consulta­nts, but the spokesman could not say how much.

Opposition deputy leader Tim Mander slammed the government for engaging the extra consultants, and said the involvement of Ms Scurrah — a friend of Ms Trad’s — did not “pass the pub test”.

“Queensland needs to have confidence that there’s separation between government and their friends,” Mr Mander said.

Ms Trad’s family stayed at Ms Scurrah’s family’s ski lodge at Whist­ler in Canada at the start of the year. But Ms Trad said she had nothing to do with the appointment of Ms Scurrah, who she said was a professional being employed for her expertise.

It comes as Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was forced to finally confirm the cost of an external Ernst & Young audit into government investment in a company ­directed by Ms Palaszczuk’s former chief of staff, David Barbagallo.

In an updated written answer to a question on notice from the opposition, Ms Palaszczuk said the audit cost $27,235 and was led by EY Brisbane partner Penny Shield.

But she again refused to release the contents of the EY report, ­because it is being considered by the state’s Crime and Corruption Commission as part of its ongoing assessment into Mr Barbagallo and the investment.

Ms Palaszczuk only released the audit’s cost after Liberal Nat­ion­al Party MP John-Paul Lang­broek wrote to Speaker Curtis Pitt asking him to direct the Premier to answer his original question.