Assessing contract policy work: overseeing Canadian policy consultants

Abstract

Most of the interest in assessment of policy consulting in recent years has been related to financial and budgetary matters. This narrow focus has not dealt adequately with other important issues such as the impact of increased external consulting on the range and quality of advice and services provided to government. As such, important dimensions of this kind of contracting behaviour have been missed. This paper supplements new government contract data with the findings of a 2012–13 survey of approximately 160 Canadian federal government policy managers to investigate the oversight of contracts for policy work in Canada. Inefficiencies generated by a generalized lack of shared data and knowledge gained through the employment of external consultants is a major characteristic of this activity, which existing financially-based control systems fail to manage effectively.

Keywords:

• Canada
• financial oversight
• policy consulting
• policy management
• public policy