President and founder of the consulting firm Sia Partners, Matthieu Courtecuisse also heads Syntec Conseil, the professional organization representing consulting firms in France, which brings together nearly 250 companies of all sizes. In recent months, his company has notably been entrusted by the State with support and project management missions, on behalf of the Ministry of Justice. The Sia Partners teams have also been asked to help with fraud detection or cybersecurity.
L’Express: In response to the controversy over the massive use of consulting firms, the government made a commitment on Wednesday March 30 to reduce “at least 15%” of benefits of this type. How do you react to this announcement?
Matthew Courtecuisse: It is perfectly legitimate for the political power – government, elected officials – to ensure the proper use of public funds and to question the merits of certain expenditures. And the work done by the Senate on the use of consulting firms does not pose any problem for me. I myself was also interviewed as part of this commission of inquiry. The resulting parliamentary report makes a diagnosis and formulates proposals which essentially coincide with the recommendations of the profession, whether in terms of transparency, supervision of missions, data protection or ethical rules. What bothers me are the approximations, the abuse of language and the instrumentalization of the subject for controversial purposes, in these last days of the campaign.
What approximations are you talking about?
With regard to the year 2021, it is explained everywhere that the consulting firms have invoiced the French State nearly one billion euros. But in doing so, we are aggregating expenditure on management and strategy consulting with IT expenditure, even though it has nothing to do with it. I just recall that the purpose of the Senate inquiry committee was to assess the “influence” of consulting firms on public policy. I don’t quite see how a contract for application maintenance, for updating the computer systems of such and such a ministry, contributes to “influence” a policy.
This mixture of genres is only intended to inflate the figures, to give the impression that the cabinets represent a huge budget for the finances of the State. In reality, if we stick to management and strategy consulting services, the envelope is around 400 million euros. It’s a significant sum, which may shock, but it’s not a billion…
What is denounced by the commission of inquiry is above all the soaring of these expenses since the beginning of the five-year term, testifying to a massive and systematized recourse to firms like yours. It is normal to wonder about this spectacular increase…
Once again, everything depends on the perimeter taken into account. If we refer to management and strategy consulting services, another report, that of the Court of Auditors on the general review of public policies (RGPP), shows that under the Sarkozy mandate, we were above 500 million per year. One hundred million more than last year. By comparison, the start of Macron’s five-year term was marked by a very low level of consultancy spending. It was even the lowest level for fifteen years. We all know that Emmanuel Macron’s program in 2017 was not very ambitious in the transformation of the State; he rather attached himself to the transformation of the parity sphere, the reform of the labor market.
Then, it’s true, we saw a very clear acceleration in spending. It naturally corresponds to the Covid period, which saw an increase in missions, especially in the field of health which, historically, was not the one that consumed the most consulting services. But after all, consultants are for that! When a crisis situation arises, we can call on their skills overnight to deal with urgent issues. Nothing shocking about that, it’s our raison d’être…
Nobody wonders about the council expenses of the City of Paris, the Ile de France Region…
Incidentally, and to finish answering your question, I can’t help wondering about the senators’ fragmented vision: why don’t they take into account the consulting expenses in local authorities? Perhaps because they are not the responsibility of the macronists? However, they amounted to nearly 150 million euros last year, and it is interesting to note that they are the ones that have progressed the most in recent years. Around 40% to 50% for four to five years. An increase linked in particular to the establishment of large cities and the merger of regions under François Hollande. Curiously, no one talks about it. Nobody wonders about the council expenses of the City of Paris, the Ile de France Region…
Given the sums at stake, it is not illegitimate to ask whether the expenses incurred are producing the expected results and whether certain firms are not benefiting from a form of “annuity” with public principals who are not always very attentive . Recognize that the Senate report has the merit of asking these questions, and can lead to correcting certain excesses…
But what excesses are we talking about? The media dwell on anecdotes ridiculing the methods of consultants, on paid missions but serving no purpose… The truth, and you can verify it in the Senate report, is that in 75% of cases listed by the commission of inquiry, the marks attributed to the missions were 4 or 5 out of 5. So contrary to the prevailing discourse, the consulting firms provide quality and highly appreciated services.
As for the sums involved, they must be put into perspective, because they are much lower than what is practiced in other countries… In the United Kingdom, for example, an economy of comparable size to ours, the consultancy expenditure of the public sector are close to 2 billion euros; in Germany, they amount to 1.5 billion. Overall, you see, France is a small consumer.
I would add that the prices practiced in the consulting sector for the State are between 30% and 200% lower than what is invoiced in the private sector; it is therefore wrong to say that the profession “feeds on the beast”. Moreover, in general, the public sector poles of consulting firms are not profitable. Many inaccuracies and untruths have been conveyed in recent days. My fear is that following this controversy, some firms will simply stop working for the state. They will no longer respond to his requests. It may not make many people cry, but is the public sector able to meet all the needs? I have some doubts about his ability to do so…
In an interview given to the Express, Claude Revel, former interministerial delegate for Economic Intelligence, judges that the incessant use of consulting firms denotes a “particular ideological logic: a deep mistrust for the senior civil service, which is not considered competent enough”. What do you think ?
The ideology is first of all to think that the consulting firms are there to infiltrate the services of the State, to interfere everywhere, and would be under Anglo-Saxon influence… Let’s be serious: France is number 1 in Europe in academic research in management, with four business schools in the top ten places of the ranking. This excellence is due to the combined action of our business schools and consulting firms, not to any Anglo-Saxon influence.
In any case, I reject the idea of a “deep distrust” of the senior civil service. On the contrary, a certain number of us congratulate ourselves on the reform of the ENA, which aims precisely to enrich the background of senior civil servants, by making them more professional in the action and modernization of the public apparatus and by desiring them less systematically for inspection bodies. The profession is very demanding of this development: the more we will have in front of us interlocutors familiar with the challenges of transformation, the more our work will be fruitful.
This is not the case today ?
Let’s say that the State, as an employer, has lost a lot of attractiveness. Before, the young graduates who left Polytechnique fought to integrate the big bodies. It was a bit of the Grail. Today most polytechnicians, the best ranked in particular, prefer to work in finance or consulting than in the civil service… And between us, it’s hard to prove them wrong: when we chain Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Hulot Ecology, it is difficult to recruit polytechnicians to think about energy policy.
The State must reinvent its managerial vocation and the way it manages talent. There are far too many silos within it, management by status, this mode of operation seems to me to be rather unsuited to the challenges of the 2020s. In any case, it does not attract the best, that’s for sure…