The Court of Auditors has alerted the government to the “problematic conditions” of the use of consulting companies during the pandemic at the end of 2021. This is revealed by a 90-page report by the rue de Cambon institution on expenses related to the health crisis, made public this Monday by the newspaper The world.
According to the newspaper, 13 million euros were spent in 2020 and 2021 on consultancy services on behalf of the General Directorate of Health (DGS). According to the report authors, these assignments often went beyond providing expertise lacking in the public sector, reports The world.
The Court of Auditors considers “largely artificial” the attachment of the vaccination strategy to a framework agreement signed by the Interministerial Directorate of Public Transformation (DITP). A choice that the DGS justified by the “exceptional” nature of the pandemic and the “response capacity” that the DITP framework agreement allows.
In total, this process was used for seven orders made to McKinsey for the vaccination campaign between November 2020 and February 2022, one of which was signed following the alert from the Court of Auditors at the end of December 2021, underlines The worldwhich is based on a Senate investigative committee report released in February.
The DITP framework agreement on public transformation was also used by the Ministry of Ecological Transition to ask McKinsey to work on scenarios for the resumption of public transport, before the first lack of confinement in spring 2020, the newspaper indicates.
The Court of Auditors also cites Citwell, which was awarded eight missions in 2020 for a total amount of 2.3 million euros. The Government invoked the reason of “imperative urgency” linked to the health crisis to commission this consultancy without respecting the normally mandatory advertising and competition.
This possibility is provided for by the public procurement code on an exceptional basis. This did not stop the magistrates on rue de Cambon from recommending to the Ministry of Health “to anticipate sufficient time for the preparation of the markets before the launch of the missions”, reports Le Monde.
In addition, if certain missions entrusted to Citwell “correspond to the role that can be assigned to a private service provider, it is less normal for the latter to be required to guarantee the daily execution of the missions, employing three to four full-time equivalents according to the period”, laments the Court of Auditors.
Finally, the rue Cambon institution considers “abnormal” that the government has delegated to Roland Berger’s cabinet missions that fall under the administration’s jurisdiction, “despite the fact that it has a powerful internal inspection body, whose members have all the required skills “.
Therefore, the institution recommends “strictly limiting the use of cabinets to technical missions for which the central administration departments of the Ministry of Health do not have the required skills internally.” A recommendation taken into account by the government, which unveiled a new framework for the use of advisory services, applicable from 2023.
Source: BFM TV
