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On the 2015 and 2019 town hall platforms, the Oslo town hall has been very clear: They will reduce the use of external consultants in the municipality in favor of hiring their own professionals and increasing the municipality’s competition.
Despite this, the opposite happened. The use of external consultants has exploded in recent years. In 2015, the municipality spent 1,500 million to buy these services. In 2019, that number increased to 2.28 billion. This is stated in the annual report of the town hall.
Growth has been particularly strong in the last year from 2018 to 2019. At that time, consulting purchases grew from $ 1.9 billion to nearly $ 2.3 billion. Thus, with more than NOK 400 million, a growth of 24.4 percent.
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High activity
– We carry out many complex projects and initiatives where there are good reasons to hire external consultants. These are limited time projects where we need specialized experience or independent evaluations. This applies, for example, to Fornebubanen and work on Oslo’s new drinking water source. So we need consultants. When we have a high activity and start big projects, we completely depend on the external.
This is stated by the Oslo Finance Agency, Einar Wilhelmsen (ODM). It is he who has overall responsibility for consulting in the municipality. He points out, among other things, the Origo digitization project as an example of the municipality’s change from buying external services to promoting digital development with its own employees. It also notes that the Ministry of Education has considerably reduced the use of consultants in recent years.
PHOTO: FREDRIK HAGEN / NTB scanpix
– Isn’t it awkward to promise in 2015 and 2019 that consulting will be reduced?
– The idea is to recover some of the central tasks of the municipality and not to use consultants where it is natural that we have the experience of the municipality. I see that you can read that we should be careful when hiring consultants even when we really need them on time-limited projects, says Wilhelmsen.
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– Can we expect consulting to continue to grow, in the same way that it has grown every year since 2015?
– I don’t want to speculate on that. We will continue to work with the goal of reducing the use of consultants in cases where competition should be in the municipality, says the finance agency.
Right: – Embarrassed
The leader of the right-wing group on the city council, Øystein Sundelin, says the strong growth in consulting shows that the promises and ambitions of the city council do not match reality.
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– The city of Oslo needs a lot of help hired when we do things temporarily. We do not need to hire teachers through consulting firms because we are going to teach for the foreseeable future. But we don’t always build the Fornebubane, we buy trams, we build a new Munchmuseum or a new bathroom. Therefore, you must hire help by making that kind of special investment, Sundelin says, adding:
– The City Council did not notice in 2015 and they did not notice in 2019. Then, through the shameful exercise, they have to explain this every year. It would have been better if they admitted that it is okay to use consultants occasionally.
PHOTO: MIMSY MILLS
That said, Sundelin says that even he believes that when the consultancy approaches 2.5 billion, it is soon time to put the brakes on.
– I don’t think it’s the case that agencies rent just to rent. It is to solve specific tasks. But it is clear, the number is beginning to rise, says the right-wing politician.
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