A leading UK Lean management consultancy has encouraged politicians to use external consultants to achieve multi-billion pound savings.

The Government has declared that to lower the national debt over the next five years there needs to be 80 per cent efficiency and cost savings as well as 20 per cent increase in taxes, meaning efficiency savings are now a top priority.

Global consultancy Knowledge, Management and Transfer (KM&T) believes that the current stance taken by some politicians of dogmatically criticising consultants is hurting the public sector. Steve Boam, Chief Executive Officer at KM&T which has offices in the UK, Europe, Australia and Asia, said the way forward is to employ external support where there is clear value and a return on investment associated with improving the quality of its services, leading to increased productivity at the same time as reducing cost. "We believe the public sector wants and needs to change so having a blanket moratorium from Whitehall on not using external consultants is detrimental to the challenge of making the massive savings which are needed," he said.

"In our work across the country we have discovered real pockets of talent in the public sector, who are ready to change with the right support, capable of providing effective and cost effective solutions. Used in the right way consultants can introduce methods of working which improve internal capabilities, change working cultures, encourage best practice patterns to bring about sustainable change. There needs to be, in our opinion, a comprehensive review of services to achieve the improvements that need to be made.

"Deciding not to employ external consultants is like throwing the baby out with the bath water. Where has the "invest to save" mentality gone? We need to give the 'invest to save' principle time to work. We have seen many a return of investment in excess of 60-1 so why would you not consider employing external help when you could get 60-1 savings?”

Steve dismissed the theory that some management personnel insist that Lean Thinking is a brutal cost cutting exercise. He added: "In our experience measures such as direct cost cutting are counterproductive and actually increase departmental costs. With understaffing, increased work load and a demoralised workforce the effectiveness of an organisation can be significantly reduced, not to mention the cost of quality due to unhappy complaining customers having a lack of trust or respect for the services being provided. A whole department or public sector organisation can change by following a structured format allowing a Lean culture to be developed. Creating sustainability, improving services and quality while removing cost as an output is a far greater and more effective programme than short term cost cutting.