Skills shortages and workforce gaps are in the sights of a new group aiming to end government reliance on external consultants.
A unit in the premier's department will redirect agencies to existing resources where available, and work on building in-house capabilities for services with high demands, the NSW government has announced.
"This over-reliance on consultants has directly contributed to the budget mess we inherited," Premier Chris Minns said on Thursday.
The group is being transferred from the Public Service Commission with a view to better integrating whole-of-government policy planning, and will also collect and report data on the public sector workforce.
Legislation will be amended to focus the commissioner on ethics and integrity matters while transferring workforce planning.
The premier's department will also develop new policies setting clear expectations about the sort of work government agencies are expected to be able to perform without engaging external consultants.
It comes after the release of a parliamentary inquiry under the previous government, which found consultants were engaged more than 10,000 times in five years, an average of one every working hour.
Some $193 million was spent on consultants in 2022/23 but the government plans to cut spending by $35 million.
The upcoming budget will reduce the debt left from prior extravagant spending on external consultants and continue rebuilding essential public services, Government Procurement Minister Courtney Houssos said.
"This waste and mismanagement characterised the Liberals' and Nationals' approach to finances," she said.
Opposition Leader Mark Speakman said the Labor government had an "ideological opposition" to using the private sector, even when it was more cost-effective to employ consultants, following the inquiry's report in May.
"It's always a case of working out what is the best value for money," he said at the time.
