I'm not sure what the private sector would spend on consultants. I would say that in the private sector, they typically tend to offer large dollar-value contracts, big items. My experience, and it's more anecdotal than anything, is governments tend to use more small-dollar, individual contracts. But we don't have a formal ratio.
If you did go back in time, I think as far back as probably even the mid-nineties when those large cuts took place, you would have seen a drop in personnel spending and a corresponding increase in professional and special services. Of those two things, one went down and one went up. In recent years we've seen spending and professional special services level off and start to drop. I have not yet looked at the 2012-13 numbers to see what the trend was there, but, really, departments are free to make use of whatever resources they think they best need to deliver programs. If that involves personnel dollars, that's fine. If from time to time they think they need some outside help, that's fine too. They have operating dollars to do that.