Sure. I haven't looked at what other countries do. I've been very busy looking at what Canada does, so unfortunately I don't have international comparisons.
The fact that consultant services and the recourse to those services has increased is concerning when compared or when put together with the increase in the size of the public service. The reason I'm saying that is that, when you have a growing public service, you'd expect that growth to happen in areas of need. The fact that this is happening, but the use of consultants is also increasing.... Services are not always keeping pace with expectations. That is the part of the equation that is concerning to me.
For example, if the use of consultants for health care services is increasing, it's obviously to meet needs. When it's for IT services, it's also to meet needs. Each and every one of them may well be justified, but then, why are we outsourcing many of these services at the same time as we have a public service that is growing? Are we hiring the wrong types of public servants, or should we be hiring even more public servants, which we can't, because obviously we need to use consultants? It leads to all kinds of questions for which the answers are not obvious, at least not to me.