Dear Chums,This addressed to those of you who work in the public/government field. Do you feel a sense of guilt at the fact that you are assisting your organisations in diverting public money away from front line services and into private coffers? It's not as if you have collectively made a difference to the quality of public services in this country....

Not in the slightest - how much worse would things be if they were left to their own devices ?Don't blame consultants when projects flounder - blame the senior civil servants who don't manage them properly or get full value from them.

go easy on him Norm....they'll all run out on strike if your not carefuloops...spoke to soon

I think this depends on several factors, including the company culture, the particular client organisation and the nature of the project. Personally, I'm confident in my firm's ability to deliver real value to our public sector clients, and the integrity of our project managers (focus on client needs rather than sales targets). Mismanaged and unsuccessful projects have as much to do with clueless clients as they do with greedy consultants.Working in public procurement, I see my work as doing the reverse of what you describe, i.e. helping public authorities become savvier buyers and more effective users of private sector providers, hence taking the tax-payers' money from "private coffers" and putting it back where it belongs, i.e. frontline public services.