The National:

This week's edition of the In Common newsletter comes from Kaitlyn Dryburgh, policy and communication co-ordinator of Common Weal. To receive the newsletter direct to your inbox every week click here.

SOMETHING I never thought would happen, not in a month of Sundays; I’m going to agree and perhaps even sympathise with Dominic Cummings. It truly is a shock to me as well.

You see, before we associated Barnard Castle with eyesight tests, Dominic Cummings had begun a bit of a fight to reform the Civil Service. Some of his gripes were nothing more than a temper tantrum in response to being told no. Yet, there was an area where he had a clear-sighted awareness of a real problem – consultancies.

Cummings (below) had clearly spotted a concerning trend which was an over-reliance on using private firms when developing policy or delivering government projects. Although he has long gone, he still has a point.

Have you ever wondered why bad, over-priced and not-functional policy keeps getting churned out via the Scottish Government? Well, look no further than private consultancy firms.

The problem with firms like KPMG and the other prominent consultancies used by both the Scottish and UK governments is that they also represent other private firms, not just government. It is therefore no surprise that many of the policies formulated by these consultancies tend to favour privatisation, in areas that their other clients operate in.

READ MORE: My diagnosis of the SNP on the eve of conference

As well as the heavy preference towards privatisation, there is a skew towards centralisation. Big consultancy firms and local democracy, you wouldn’t be surprised to know, are not things that go well together. Centralisation is also another great avenue towards privatisation.

But just as important is the fact that the policy they come up with is very often something that falls well short of sound, well rounded and robust. Look at how the Scottish National Care Service being designed by consultancies is opposed so strenuously by actual care practitioners. We are consistently being ripped off by these firms in the interests of their private clients.

Common Weal revealed this week that the Scottish Government knew that KPMG was acting dishonestly when awarded the 2021 contract to design the National Care Service Bill. This happened at the same time that KPMG was pulling out of bidding on any new UK contracts having been threatened with a ban. The contract amounted to more than half a million pounds and simply shouldn’t have been awarded with the clear knowledge that the firm was dishonest.

But, what do you know, having steamrolling ahead with KPMG for the design process, Scotland found itself with a proposed Care Bill that is just dripping in privatisation and is unfit for purpose.

Cummings put forward a plan to reform the Civil Service, and within a whole lot of unpopular ideas, lay a plan to create an internal consultancy. A department dubbed "Crown Consultancy" would become an internal policy advice service for the Civil Service but would be independent of government.

READ MORE: I think Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer are financially illiterate

Cummings suggested that this would be filled with the brightest graduates and minds in the country. One of the main pushbacks against this plan, aside from consultancies who were seeing their pound sign dissipate, was the feeling that the true size of what was really needed was not considered.

Which is of course true. The Civil Service is a huge beast, working like a living organism. It would require a substantial consultancy team with numerous skills and knowledge to rise to the task. But private consultancies have exactly this problem too.

And it is certainly possible to create something better than we have. If both the Scottish and UK governments are willing to spend large sums of money to pay these firms for often sub-par work, there is definitely the funds to set one up in-house.

But when looking at the Civil Service like a sort-of living organism, any function it needs to survive it should have within itself. If it needs policy development support, it needs that support to be there. Without it, it doesn’t function properly. Not having that capacity there makes no sense.

The infatuation with private consultancy firms needs to stop. The two-way conveyor belt between KPMG and its buddies and government must be stopped. The "Crown Consultancy" idea is one viable model, but another workable way forward is to reform how the Civil Service makes policy, for example by separating those who create policy from those who have to implement policy.

Having the two working together provides a path for civil servants to choose the easy route. If the same group are both designing and implementing policy, there’s a possibility that they’ll lean towards the idea that makes their lives easiest, even if it isn’t the best for the public.

Of course, those involved in the design process will need to have some knowledge of the process of implementing policy, but we want incentives for better policy, not incentives for easy policy. Because even if the idea is an intricate puzzle to execute, in the long run it could easily be the policy that delivers the most benefit.

It’s long overdue that Scotland turns away from the over-priced policy outsourcing that doesn’t work and just leads us all down the path of privatisation and centralisation. It could create its own public consultancy, or it could beef-up and reform the Civil Service. Whatever it does, there are undoubtedly much better alternatives to what we're currently doing.