The shadow bureaucracy: How external consultants German taxpayers and undermout the state's ability to act.

McKinsey, BCG and Big Four collect millions - Federal Audit Office warns of the administration of integrity warns

The Federal Government's expenses for external consulting services have achieved an alarming extent. An increase of 39 percent between 2020 and 2023 to almost 240 million euros annually is only the tip of an iceberg, which reveals a profound and systemic dependency of the state on a small group of globally acting consulting companies. This report analyzes the anatomy of this costly dependency, identifies the main profitors and, based on detailed case studies, documents a recurring pattern of project defects, mismanagement and conflicts of interest.

The analysis shows that the exploding costs are not due to individual cases, but to structural deficits in public administration and in procurement. Ministeries, especially the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) and the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF), are increasingly stored by core tasks, especially in the strategically critical IT sector. This happens despite years of having an urgent, urgent and largely ignored warnings from the Federal Audit Office, which sees the "integrity of the administration" in danger.

The main profitors of this system are the global industry leaders - McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the "Big Four" (PWC, KPMG, EY, Deloitte) as well as other large players such as Accenture, Roland Berger and Capgemini. Your supremacy is cemented by non -transparent framework contracts that undermine the competition and ensure privileged access to tax funds.

The case studies in this report-from the "consultant affair" in the Ministry of Defense to the Maut toll debacle to chronic failure in the IT modernization of the federal government-demonstrate a pattern of inefficiency, waste and lack of political responsibility. The costs for the taxpayer go far beyond the direct fee and include billions of billions of losses due to failed projects and the creeping loss of state competence. The report concludes with the determination that a fundamental reform of the use of consultants and a massive investment in one's own administrative competence are essential in order to break through the cycle of dependency and to restore the ability to act and trust in the German state.

The anatomy of a 240 million euro dependency

This part shows the extent and the systemic nature of the problem and analyzes the structural causes identified by the federal auditors, from the pure issuing number to the underlying mechanisms.

A decade of the escalation: the chronicle of the increase in consultant editions

The latest figures have a dramatic picture: Between 2020 and 2023, the Federal Government's expenditure for external consulting and support services rose by 39 percent to just under 240 million euros annually. This sum marks the second highest level since the beginning of the official reporting in 2007 and underlines a worrying development that goes far beyond temporary fluctuation.

However, this latest escalation is not an isolated event, but the preliminary highlight of a long -term trend. In the past ten years, the federal government has spent more than 1.6 billion euros on external expertise. A more precise view of the numbers reveals a disturbing acceleration of this dependency: around half of this sum, around 800 million euros, has been spent in the last four reporting years (2020-2023) alone. This indicates an exponential growth of dependency, in which the state is faster and faster and increasingly used to private companies to perform its tasks.

The drivers of this development can be clearly located in the departments. The Federal Ministry of the Interior and for Home (BMI) under Minister Nancy Faeser, the Federal Ministry of the Interior, is at 59.7 million euros - an increase compared to the 56.9 million euros in the previous year. The Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF), which increased its expenses under the then minister Christian Lindner from 31.1 million euros in 2022, was close to 38.2 million euros in 2023. The sheer number of contracts also grows steadily and rose from 765 in 2022 to 816 in 2023, which illustrates the increasing dismemberment and at the same time the broad anchoring of external advice in the ministerial processes.

The expenditure of the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) rose from 56.9 million euros in 2022 to 59.7 million euros in 2023, which corresponds to an increase of 4.9 percent. The Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) recorded a clearer increase from 31.1 million euros to EUR 38.2 million, which is equivalent to an increase of 22.8 percent. The total edition of all departments increased from around 186 million euros to around 240 million euros, which means an increase of approximately 29 percent.

These numbers are more than just post in a budget. They are symptoms of fundamental change in the functionality of the German state. The acceleration of the expenditure shows a growing structural dependence on external actors to fulfill tasks that were once part of the core competence of the ministerial bureaucracy. This development raises fundamental questions about efficiency, control and ultimately on the sovereignty of state action.

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• A decade of the escalation: the chronicle of the increase in the Federal Government's advisory expenditure in Germany (FRG)

The unmistaked warnings of the examiners: the ongoing criticism of the Federal Audit Office

While the expenses for consultants escalate, the warnings of the highest financial control of the federal government, the Federal Audit Office (BRH), have been consistently unimaginated for years. The examiners not only criticize the increasing costs, but urgently warn against the hollowing out of state core competencies that fundamentally endanger the "integrity of the administration".

A central and recurring criticism is the increasing outsourcing of core tasks ("core tasks") to private companies. A particularly blatant example that the BRH repeatedly denounces is the proceedings of the Federal Ministry of the Interior in the mammoth project "IT consolidation BUND". Here, the financial controlling was outsourced by a very own state control and control function to external consultants. Such a procedure, according to the examiners, poses the risk that the ministry will lose control and the ultimate responsibility of essential decisions.

In addition, the BRH criticizes the lack of interdisciplinary strategy for the use of consultants. The consultant reports presented to Parliament annually are dismissed as inadequate, "incomplete and vague". According to the examiners, they testify to "little willingness to make changes in the use of external consultants". Most ministries have not even formulated specific goals to reduce dependency.

However, this criticism is systematically ignored by the government. The BRH states that the leading Federal Ministry of Finance has not followed its recommendations for reforming non -transparent reporting. This refusal to respond to the well -founded criticism of the top auditors reveals a profound problem in political control culture. It is not an oversight, but a conscious decision to maintain the status quo.

How absurd and wasteful practice is sometimes illustrated by a case covered by the BRH at the Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund (DRV BUND), a corporation subordinate to the federal government. For a fee of 765,000 euros, a business area had a almost 10-page "rules of procedure" drawn up. According to the examiners, the document, the result of 230 consulting rounds, contained empty keywords such as "pig rounds" or "surfing". A reason why this task could not be done by its own employees was not delivered. The alleged "added value" - a "cultural -changing process" and the establishment of a new staff center - cannot be seen from the document.

The relationship between the government and its examiners is therefore deeply dysfunctional. The Federal Audit Office does not act as a petty accountant, but as a strategic Warner, which indicates an existential threat to state ability to act. The consistent ignorance of these warnings by the executive makes the problem of mismanagement to one of the intentional government failure.

The procurement funnel: How framework contracts create a closed market

The massive redirection of taxpayers into the cash registers of consulting companies is enabled and accelerated by a specific mechanism of public public procurement law: the so -called framework contracts ("framework contracts"). These contracts are the primary channel through which the ministries buy their consulting services and at the same time privileged a small group of companies.

The numbers prove the dominance of this instrument. The Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Ministry of Finance alone shouted over 500 services from 149 different framework contracts between 2018 and 2022, with a total volume of at least 261 million euros. At the BMI, almost 90 percent of all consultant contracts over 50,000 euros were recently awarded based on such a framework contract.

Although legally permissible, this practice de facto leads to the creation of a closed oligopole. Once listed in a framework contract as a potential service provider, companies can be commissioned for specific projects as part of so -called individual calls. This often only happens within the framework of a "mini competition" under the providers listed in the contract or even completely without a new tender, which significantly simplifies the procurement process for the administration, but at the same time severely limits the competition and structurally disadvantages smaller, innovative providers.

The lists of the framework contract partners, which leads the Federal Administrative Office (BVA) as part of the so-called "three-partner model" (3PM), read like a "Who is who" of the global consulting industry. As a general contractor (GU) or subcontractor (NU), the same names are regularly found here: Accenture, Bearingpoint, Capgemini, Cassini Consulting, Deloitte, Ernst & Young (Ey), Horváth & Partner, IBM, KPMG, Kienbaum, McKinsey & Company and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). These companies have secured a permanent place in the federal government's procurement system.

The “PD - Advisor of the Public Hand GmbH” plays a particularly ambivalent role. As a federal and state in-house advice, it is 100 percent owned by public property. However, instead of primarily building and using its own skills, the PD often acts as the main contractor, who then passes on the orders received to exactly those private consulting companies with which it maintains framework contracts, including McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group and Roland Berger. This creates an additional, non -transparent level and raises the question of whether the PD fulfills its role as an alternative to the private sector or rather serves as another channel for its commission.

The procurement system is therefore not designed to find the best performance at the cheapest price. Rather, it is optimized for administrative convenience and quick expenses, which benefits an exclusive circle of established large consultations. This system is one of the roots for the escalating costs, the lack of transparency and recurring project misconception.

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Profiles of the failure: the profiteers and their mistakes

This central part of the report provides the "negative examples" required by the request. Each subchapter profils a leading consulting company and documents its involvement in a significant project failure, a scandal or considerable criticism of its advisory service for the government.

The profiles of the failure clearly show the profiteers and their serious mistakes. McKinsey & Company was criticized by the advisory affair in the Federal Ministry of Defense and her BAMF commitment, whereby the nepotism, dismissal violations, conflicts of interest and excessive fees were at the center of the allegations. Accenture was also involved in the BMVG consultant affair and had to put up with allegations for personal rope teams, public procurements and presumed billing fraud.

KPMG was criticized for both the Ministry of Defense's consultant and the CUM-Ex scandal, especially because of confidence in regular violations and a lack of examination. Cooperation with the financial authorities and the BMVG was particularly questioned. PWC and Roland Berger were instrumental in the car toll debacle and supported a politically risky project that ultimately led to the waste of tax money, for which the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure was responsible.

Several large consulting companies were involved in the IT consolidation of the federal government and other IT project defects: Deloitte, Capgemini, Bearingpoint and IBM were criticized for massive cost overalls, targeting, lack of control and inefficiency, with the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Ministry of Finance.

The Boston Consulting Group came into focus through the SEFE affair, which was the former Gazprom Germania, where free-handed awarded and massive conflicts of interest were criticized with the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Protection. Ernst & Young finally had to make serious allegations in the Wirecard scandal, since the company failed for years during the balance sheet examination and injured his duties of care, regarding both the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority and the Federal Ministry of Finance.

The Nexus of the "consultant affair": a case study on nepotism and waste

The so -called "consultant affair" in the Federal Ministry of Defense (BMVG) under the then minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) is not an isolated case, but a lesson on the systemic risks of external advice. It revealed a close network of personal relationships, questionable contracts of order and massive waste of money, in which several of the world's largest consulting companies were involved.

McKinsey & Company: At the center of the affair, McKinsey, one of the most renowned strategy consultations in the world. The allegations ranged from nepotism to violent contracts to the waste of taxpayers into the millions. The then state secretary Katrin Suder played a key role. The former McKinsey senior partner had brought the Leyen to the ministry in 2014 to reform the notorious dilapidated procurement system of the Bundeswehr. Instead, Suder opened the doors for her former colleagues. In a report by the New York Times, a high-ranking McKinsey manager was quoted with the words: "Katrin was put on a position on which she was able to hire McKinsey again and again".

The facts support this impression. The Federal Audit Office found that the Ministry had often awarded large advisory contracts "free hands without competition" and that the reasons for it were "not always convincing". In addition, a "overall overview of the contracts for external" was missing from the ministry - a devastating judgment for a house that manages billions of budgets. A concrete example was the allocation of orders in the millions to the McKinsey subsidiary Orphoz by the federal IT company BWI without a proper award procedure. When State Secretary Suder was informed internally about irregularities, she forwarded them to the minister, but referred to her "own dismay" - a clear conflict of interest.

Accenture: The IT and strategy consultant Accenture also benefited from the lax conditions in the ministry. An investigation committee of the Bundestag revealed that the company enjoyed "special access to the BMVG" through a "friendly relationship" between one of its managers, Timo Noetzel, and General Erhard Bühler, a high -ranking military. These personal rope teams seem to have undermined the formal procurement rules.

The entanglements went to alleged billing fraud. The final report of the committee of inquiry stated that the main contractor SVA should have charged the Ministry 631,049.56 euros too much. This sum corresponded to 2,654 consulting hours that had never been provided by the subcontracture Accenture according to the investigation. In a different case, when the affair was already public, Accenture made a final invoice via around 3 million euros directly to the ministry instead of going the official way via the originally used framework contract - further evidence of the informal and contrary practices.

KPMG: The auditing company KPMG, one of the "Big Four", was also involved in the affair early on. She was part of a consortium that received one of Minister of the Leyen's first major consultant orders, shortly after she had declared the reform of the procurement system as a top priority. This marked the beginning of the massive expansion of consultant contracts in the department.

Although the direct role of KPMG was less prominent than that of McKinsey or Accenture in the most serious award violations, their participation must be seen in the context of their general credibility as a state consultant. It became known that KPMG auditors already knew in 2010 that the reimbursement of capital income taxes could be illegal at a bank they had tested as part of CUM-Ex branches. This compliance with one of the largest tax scandals in German history throws a shadow on the integrity of the company and asks whether such a company can be a suitable partner for the public sector.

The "consultant affair" was therefore not an accident, but the result of a systemic failure. She put a "buddy system" open, in which personal networks were above the procurement law, a "revolving door" between the consulting industry and top political offices created massive conflicts of interest and led to a poor political supervision for millions. The opposition spoke in the final report of the committee of inquiry of a "factual complete failure".

The car toll debacle: the costly collapse of a political prestige project

The disaster about the introduction of a car toll in Germany is a prime example of how a political prestige project, coupled with poor risk assessment and support from expensive consultants, can lead to a financial fiasco for taxpayers. The project was declared unlawful by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), but only after the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) had already signed binding contracts with future operators under the then minister Andreas Scheuer. The result: The federal government had to pay compensation of 243 million euros, with further claims in the room that could drive the total costs up to 776 million euros according to the report.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) & Roland Berger: In this costly disaster, the consulting companies PricewaterhouseCoopers and Roland Berger played a central role as financial profiteers. Both companies were one of the “large earners” among the external consultants, for whom the Ministry of Transport spent around 12 million euros in the crisis year 2018 alone. They provided operational support for a project, the legal and financial risks of which were immense right from the start.

For PWC, the involvement in questionable orders of the Ministry of Transport is not a new phenomenon. As early as 2008, the Federal Audit Office, under the then SPD Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee, complained for the illegal extension of a consultant contract with PWC without tender. At that time, the examiners criticized the fact that PWC had a lead in knowledge through other orders, the ministry withdrawn the decision -making authority to the responsible Federal Office and had not ensured any profitability examination. This pattern of public procurement law violations and a lack of control in the Ministry of Transport seems to have repeated itself in the toll project.

The parliamentary committee of inquiry to the toll affair came to the conclusion that the risk of failure before the ECJ should "have had greater importance". Minister Scheuer's decision to sign the contracts in front of the court ruling was classified as "reasonable", but it was also found that a later signing would have been legally possible. The opposition formulated its criticism in a special vote and spoke of a "political abyss of ignorance, irresponsibility, absence and broken law".

The car toll affair shows an example of how external consultants make it possible to become politically motivated but poorly thought-out projects. They provide the necessary expertise and legitimation to promote a project, while political leadership ignores the legal and financial risks. In the end, the advisors collect millions, while the taxpayer pays the invoice for the inevitable collapse.

The swamp of IT modernization: a collective failure of strategy and implementation

The digitization of the German administration is a permanent construction site that is characterized by chronic failures, exploding costs and failed goals. At the center of this misery is the mammoth project "IT consolidation BUND", which serves as a prime example of the collective failure of state control and external advice.

Deloitte: The “IT consolidation BUND” project was started with the ambitious goal of centralizing, standardizing and modernizing the fragmented and outdated IT landscape of the federal administration. But the balance that the Federal Audit Office draws is devastating. The project suffers from massive increases in costs: The federal annual IT and digitization expenditure of the federal government quadrupled almost from 1.5 billion euros in 2015 to planned 6 billion euros in 2023.

At the same time, central project goals were missed or abandoned. The original goal of significantly reducing over 1,300 data centers and server spaces of the federal government by the end of 2022 was abandoned. Service consolidation, which was supposed to avoid double developments, was also restricted to its extent. The BRH fundamentally criticizes the lack of effective control structures, a central IT budget and a functioning controlling, which leads to inefficient and expensive development.

The Deloitte consulting company was involved in this process, including an analysis of the federal administration database landscape. This study confirmed the strong dependence on the market leaders Oracle and Microsoft and warned to strengthen the "digital sovereignty". Although Deloitte is not solely responsible for the failure of the overall project, your participation places you at the center of a project that is assessed by the highest financial control as a costly chaos without a clear strategy.

Capgemini, BearingPoint, IBM: As Deloitte, these three companies are part of the permanent inventory of the federal government's large IT framework contracts. You will be used regularly for tasks such as IT architecture management, project management, process digitization and organizational advice. Their ubiquitous presence makes them shaped-and co-managers-for the state of government IT.

The criticism of the federal IT project culture is fundamental. Sources describe an environment in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, in which there are “neither targets, nor work contracts” and consultants are paid for according to time - a model that invites you to “never” complete projects. This practice leads to a culture of inefficiency and cost explosion, from which time -based billing models from the consultants benefit directly.

A historical example of the failure of large IT projects of the federal government, in which large providers such as IBM were involved, is the De-Mail project. Despite considerable investments and political support, this attempt to establish secure and legally binding email communication failed due to a lack of acceptance among the population and in companies. It symbolizes many public sector IT projects that are planned past the reality of user needs.

The Federal Government's attempt to modernize its IT is a case study of strategic failure. The "IT consolidation BUND" project shows that the mere provision of billions of bills and the commissioning of dozens of consulting companies without clear political leadership, without the structure of internal expertise and without a functioning governance structure, does not lead to better results. Instead, a vicious circle arises from rising costs, falling ambitions and growing dependence on the same advisors who are part of the problem.

Further remarkable cases: a pattern of questionable engagements

In addition to the large, systemic failures, there are a number of other cases that illuminate the problematic relationship between government and consultants and confirm the recurring patterns of conflicts of interest, excessive costs and lack of supervision.

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and the SEFE affair: This case is a lesson on conflicts of interest and the bypass of procurement law. In April 2022, shortly after taking over the former Gazprom Germania (today SEFE) by the federal government, the now state -controlled gas company awarded a multi -million dollar consultant to the Boston Consulting Group - free hands, without a public tender.

Particularly explosive: The award was only six days after the former BCG partner Egbert Laege was put at the head of SEFE by the Federal Government as a general representative. His former employer benefited immediately from his new position. The opposition sharply criticized this process as an obvious conflict of interest. The responsible Ministry of Economic Affairs defended direct award with the "extreme urgency" of the situation, since the company was immediately threatened by the bankruptcy. Nevertheless, the impression of an unclean allocation, in which personal networks were more important than transparent procedures.

McKinsey and the BAMF commitment: At the height of the 2015 refugee crisis, McKinsey was used to support the completely overloaded Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). What started as a commendable "Pro Bono" performance quickly developed into a lucrative business. The federal government paid McKinsey for various consulting services over 20 million euros.

A particularly controversial order was a study on deportations. For a fee of 1.86 million euros, the consultants should find out how rejected asylum seekers can be deported faster. This corresponded to an average daily rate of over 2,700 euros per consultant. When the transparency platform sued Fragdänsta, the authority initially argued that the publication of the PowerPoint presentation would endanger public security-an assertion that was later dropped. The case not only illustrates the exorbitant costs for consulting services, but also the outsourcing of highly sensitive, sovereign tasks to profit -oriented companies.

Ernst & Young (EY) and the Wirecard scandal: The collapse of the DAX group Wirecard is one of the largest economic scandals in German post-war history and a case of massive failure on several levels. At the center of the criticism is the auditing company Ernst & Young, a company that regularly also receives major orders from the Federal Government. Ey had tested Wirecard's balance sheets for years and overlooked a hole of 1.9 billion euros that consisted of invented sales. The German final examiner supervisory board (APAS) later found that EY had violated his professional duties during the exam.

This case is of crucial importance for the assessment of government advisors, since it reveals a catastrophic competence and diligent failure in one of the largest examination and consulting companies in the world. At the same time, the scandal opened the total failure of the state supervision by the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin). Bafin ignored standards for years from Financial Times journalists, instead filed a complaint against the journalists and even issued an empty sale ban to protect Wirecard share. The Wirecard scandal is therefore a double negative example: it shows the failure of an important private partner of the state and the simultaneous failure of the state control instances.

These individual cases are not outliers. They underpin the overarching topics of this report: interest conflicts caused by the "revolving door" between politics and advice (BCG/SEFE), exorbitant costs for questionable services (McKinsey/Bamf) and a fundamental failure of both the duty of care of private contractors and the state supervision (EY/WIRECARD/BAFIN). The problem is widespread and complex.

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Analysis and recommendations: break through the vicious circle

The findings from the above -mentioned case studies were summarized here in order to draw overall conclusions about the systemic dysfunctions and to propose concrete, implementable reforms.

A pattern of dysfunction: common features for failed government projects

The analysis of the case studies presented reveals recurring patterns that indicate profound, systemic problems in dealing with the federal government with external consultants. It is not isolated breakdowns, but the symptoms of a chronic illness in administrative culture and political control.

First, systematic disregard for the public procurement law is evident. The repeated practice of "free -handed" without competition, as documented in the consultant affair and in the Sefe case, is a clear indication that administrative convenience and personal networks often have priority over the principles of transparency and economy. Framework contracts that are supposed to increase efficiency become an instrument that favors an exclusive club of major consultations and undermines the competition.

Second, massive conflicts of interest are the order of the day. The "revolving door effect", in which high-ranking consultants switch to top political positions and vice versa, creates an environment in which objective decisions are hardly possible. The cases of Katrin Suder (McKinsey/BMVG) and Egbert Laege (BCG/SEFE) are parade examples of how such changes can lead to preference for former employers. The "buddy system", which was covered in the consultant affair, shows that personal friendships are also sufficient to pry to proclaim the procurement law.

Third, there is a culture of lack of political responsibility. Minister such as Ursula von der Leyen and Andreas Scheuer were politically at the head of departments in which billions of billions of failures and massive violations took place. However, personal or far -reaching political consequences failed to materialize. This impunity at the highest level sends a fatal signal to the administration and encourages problematic practices.

Fourth and perhaps the most fundamental is the lack of internal expertise. The government is no longer able to control, control and control it without massive external support, especially in the case of complex IT projects and large reform projects. The Federal Audit Office has been warning of this loss of competence for years, which drives the state into a self -reinforcing spiral of dependency: the more tasks are outsourced, the more your knowledge disappears, which in turn leads to even more outsourcing.

The hollowing out of the state: consequences of a gutted administration

The annual costs of 240 million euros are only the most visible part of the damage. The true, long -term risk of excessive dependence on external consultants lies in the creeping erosion of state performance, democratic control and public trust.

The first consequence is the loss of institutional competence and memory. When core functions such as IT strategy, project management or even financial controlling are systematically outsourced to external companies, the public service forgot to perform these tasks themselves. There is a "gutted" administration that is no longer able to act without its external helpers. This loss of competence creates a permanent dependency that is difficult to reverse and weakens the state in the long term.

The second consequence concerns democratic accountability. External consultants are not elected democratically. They act on behalf of their profit -oriented companies and are primarily committed to their partners and shareholders, not the common good. If these actors, which are not subject to accounts, have a significant impact on the design of laws, the control of ministries and the orientation of public administration, this undermines fundamental principles of democratic control and transparency.

The third and last consequence is the corrosion of public trust. Top-class and expensive failures such as the car toll, the endless debacle in the digitization of the administration or the scandals in the Ministry of Defense sustainably damage the reputation of the state. They nourish the impression of an inefficient, wasteful and controlled government that is unable to carefully manage the funds of taxpayers and effectively provide fundamental services.

A way to the reform: implementable recommendations for accounting and competence

The reversal of this worrying trend requires more than just cosmetic corrections. Fundamental rethinking and courageous political decisions are required. Based on the findings of this report and the repeated but ignored recommendations of the Federal Audit Office, the following specific reform steps can be derived:

Reform of public procurement system for consulting services: The use of free -handed award and non -transparent framework contracts for strategic advisory services must be drastically restricted. Open, competitive tenders must become the rule for all major consulting projects. The decisive criterion must not be the price alone, but the best price-performance ratio ("Value for Money").

Implementation of radical transparency: All consultant contracts above a low threshold must be published completely, including detailed performance descriptions, the agreed delivery items and the total costs. The disclosure of all subcontractors involved must be mandatory in order to prevent the use of companies such as the PD as an opaque middleman.

Start of a "competence -efficient public sector": The Federal Government must make a massive and sustainable investment in the reconstruction of internal expertise. This applies in particular to the areas of IT and digitization, complex project management and strategic planning. The goal must be to make the use of external consultants a "exception", as critics have long demanded, and not to the rule.

Establishment of clear political and administrative responsibilities: For large-scale projects, clear responsibilities must be defined at the ministerial and state secretary level. Failures, massive cost overruns and targets must have a noticeable consequences. A culture of political assumption of responsibility must replace that of impunity.

Strengthening the Federal Audit Office: The recommendations of the BRH must receive a greater legal weight. Ministeries that decide to ignore the highest financial control recommendations should be obliged to formal and public justification.

The reversal of this trend is not a purely fiscal necessity. It is crucial for the restoration of the ability to act, the integrity and trustworthiness of the German state in the 21st century.

The German federal government faces a serious problem that affects both taxpayers and the integrity of the administration: the uncontrolled dependence on external consulting companies. In its most recent report, the Federal Audit Office has had a clear criticism of the lack of strategy of the government to reduce this costly dependency. The numbers speak a clear language and reveal the extent of this problematic development.

This development is all the more worrying when the Bundestag's budget committee had already called for a substantial reduction in consultant costs in 2020. However, the Federal Government has not fulfilled these claims, as the Federal Audit Office unequivocally determines. Instead, the government's annual advisory reports show little willingness to make changes in the use of external consultants.

The structural weaknesses of the current approach

• Lack of strategic planning
• Hanging up administrative integrity
• Quality problems and copy paste advice

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