Vol.:(0123456789) Policy Sciences https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-021-09441-3 1 3 RESEARCH ARTICLE Rethinking the commissioning of consultants for enhancing government policy capacity Catherine Althaus 1  · Lisa Carson 1  · Ken Smith 2 Accepted: 7 October 2021 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021 Abstract The increasing international use of consulting frms in public administration has attracted warnings against diminishing policy capability, accountability and transparency. Whilst signifcant debates and multiple tensions exist, this article introduces an innovative Aus- tralian model which provides scope to harness and balance the strengths of the contribu- tions of consultants and consultancy frms to improve government policy capacity. We argue that advantages exist for engaging Tier 1 consultants provided the conditions are right. Moving past binary debates about whether or not consultants should be used in the public sector, we call for a more nuanced understanding and discussion about how to bet- ter leverage expertise, comparative analysis and contestability. Using Wu et al.’s (Policy Soc 34(3–4):165–171, 2015) framework, our pragmatic and sophisticated approach shifts theory and practice on the use of consultants to ensure clarity in the rationale of seeking external advice in order to build or improve policy capacity. Keywords Policy capacity · Consultancy · Commissioning · Public sector management · Treasury corporations Introduction Does the use of consultants necessarily “hollow out” capacity? Might consultants, as an inevitable part of the policymaking system, be harnessed in better ways that enable the fundamental roles of public services not only be preserved but enhanced? Like Ylönen and Kuusela (2019), we are intrigued to answer the question of whether and how the public sector can “internalize” some of the positive outcomes associated with consultants—pro- viding knowledge and idea alternatives, serving demands for agility and timeliness, and greater interaction—without losing its ethos (p. 255). We use a case study of an innovative, sophisticated commissioning of Tier 1 manage- ment consultancy frms in a subnational jurisdiction in Australia to propose new ways of looking at how consultancies can be better commissioned to (re)build policy capacity. * Lisa Carson l.carson@anzsog.edu.au 1 Australia & New Zealand School of Government, UNSW Canberra, Canberra, Australia 2 Australia & New Zealand School of Government, ANZSOG, Parkville, Australia