It’s never too late to do well… After the revelations of the “Obs” which occurred in June 2021, then those of the Senate in March 2022, on the crazy spending on state advice, especially in IT, the government decides to put an end to the mismanagement: in a circular published this Wednesday, February 8, Matignon indeed recommends better control of purchases in this area. Because in recent years, budgets have exploded: hundreds of millions of euros spent annually, sometimes to no avail. Like the SIRHEN project which was supposed to bring together in a single application, payroll, training, the advancement of all teachers. Launched in 2007, abandoned eleven years later, it will have cost 350 million euros. To no avail. It never worked. And SIRHEN is far from being an isolated example. In defence, justice or the police, the digitization of State services has often proved catastrophic, each time with external consultants involved.
Because, for many years, consulting companies have had an open table in the ministries, without their interventions being really controlled. In her circular, Elisabeth Borne recognizes this: “the IT intellectual services » have not hitherto been the subject of a ” follow up “ particular. She “hopes that work will henceforth be carried out by the interministerial digital department (DINUM) and the state purchasing department (DAE) so that the objectives and methods of implementing the IT purchasing strategy of the ‘State “, she adds. Finally.
APL, pandemic, citizen consultations: “the worrying trivialization” of the use of consultants
It is true that the Republic is under-endowed with digital technology. There are only 18,000 IT specialists for 2.5 million State civil servants. The ministries, with the exception of Bercy and the Armies, are on the bone. In 2018, the Court of Auditors estimated that Justice provided only 9% of its IT needs internally, Foreign Affairs 10%, Culture 14%. Elisabeth Borne therefore intends to strengthen the management of projects so as not to leave a free hand to external stakeholders. To do this, maximum outsourcing thresholds are set: “at more than 60% the project must be considered at risk”And “over 80%”he just can’t ” to start up “. Radical ! She also asks “maintain a sufficient level of skills within the departments, so as to reduce risks”evokes the need for a “recruitment of an experienced management team” and the training of “project directors in post so that they master the fundamental know-how of project management”.
After having long denied excessive recourse to consultants, the government has therefore finally resolved to save money. Even before the publication of this circular (which deals only with IT advice), Stanislas Guerini, the Minister of Public Transformation, last year reduced by 35% the spending on strategic advice for ministries. But he wants to go even further. He is in the process of recruiting 25 people for the DITP, the Interministerial Directorate for Public Transformation, in order to strengthen the State’s internal skills in consulting. The Minister also wrote to all public operators (Pôle emploi, Assurance-Maladie, CAF, etc.) asking them to use “more rigorously” private practices.
In November, Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of the Economy, had, for the first time, ended up recognizing a “drift” and ” abuse ” in the use of consultants. Like what, it’s never too late… to say that we were wrong.
