"For the last decade or so, in the name of modernisation, rationalisation and efficiency we have been living under a regime of government by management consultant and policy by PowerPoint,” claimed David Cameron in a speech to the Campaign to Protect Rural England yesterday.

“The result,” he argued “has been an explosion of bureaucracy, cost and irritation, endless upheavals and pointless reorganisations, the elbowing aside of colourful, human, informal relationships based on common sense and trust in favour of the grey, mechanical, joyless mantras of the master planner with his calculations, projections and impact assessments….”

You can read the full story on the BBC here.

I don’t know what Microsoft thought about his dismissal of PowerPoint but I doubt that his words got many consultants in a fluster, because attacks on the use of consultants by government are nothing new (examples here , here and here.) It’s easy to see why the government spending nearly £3bn on the likes of PA, McKinsey or KPMG is less popular than spending it on paying nurses and teachers more money. It’s also easy to see why opposition politicians like David Cameron use management consultancy fees as a stick to beat the government. People find it hard to understand what a consultant does and how it benefits society and often assume they must be a waste of money compared to another teacher or a doctor.

Should we, therefore, expect scathing cutbacks on consultancy budgets if the Conservatives return to power? Should a recruiter of public sector consultants, like me, be searching for other forms of employment in the face of a frugal Tory government?

Perhaps, but I think it’s unlikely. Why? Because the skills that consultancies provide in areas like strategy, performance improvement, change management, outsourcing, etc all have to come from somewhere and hiring consultants is still less expensive than employing someone permanently. Even if an incoming Tory government implements swingeing public sector cuts (though that looks unlikely) consultants will still be needed to advise on where and how the cutbacks should be made. More fundamentally, the use of consultants fits in with the philosophy of an outsourced, efficient public sector that makes use of private sector best practice which has been at the heart of the Conservative approach since the 1988 Next Steps report and has been largely adopted by New Labour.

So, while David Cameron may make political hay out of consultancy fees now it hard to see public sector consultancy fees dropping were he to become Prime Minister. I’m sure though, that the news that PowerPoint is to be banned will bring cheers from more than just the civil service!