`Hit-man' tactic not favoured by top consultant

A master of the universe is moving. Mr Tom Murray, director with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), has quit the multinational after 13 years of consultancy work for 15 Government departments and a range of semi-state bodies.

Bord na Mona, the GAA, Fianna Fail, the Independent Radio and Television Commission (IRTC), the Defence Forces, the Office of Public Works, the National Economic and Social Forum, An Post, CERT . . . you name it, and it has been through his hands. He has directed, and been lead consultant for, some of the most significant strategic change-and-development assignments undertaken in the State over the past decade.

The Meath man has tramped over midland bogs, pored over Leaving Cert exam papers, visited Army outposts in the Lebanon, touched down on the heaving deck of a Navy ship in a Dauphin helicopter, studied the intricacies of digital television . . . and probably brainstormed with more movers and shakers than most senior civil servants.

Many of his reports on strategic public-sector policy have been published by Government, and he has also directed a number of overseas assignments. Having started out as a civil servant himself - his first job being an executive officer in the Department of Education - he is probably the envy of some who now face him across official desks. At the time he left, his star was on the rise as an assistant principal officer in the Department of Finance.

He isn't logging off, however. Laptop in hand, he has moved from George's Quay on the Liffey to Molyneux House in Bride Street, home of the Dublin accountancy and business consultancy firm, Farrell Grant Sparks. Currently ranked as among the top 10 accountancy practices in the State, it aims to develop its consultancy brief, and already has several public bodies, financial institutions, industry associations and management and employer teams among its client list.

Farrell Grant Sparks has headhunted Mr Murray at a time when the management consultancy market is worth about £60 million (€76.2 million) annually here - and when the profession itself is coming in for some flak across the water. The recent Channel 4 television series, Masters of the Universe, highlighted how it is beginning to turn in on itself, with "meta-consultants" offering their services to consultants who have been hired to advise management, at hefty sums.

"The reality is that we have long since passed the stage where it is a one-dimensional profession," Mr Murray acknowledges. Increasingly, the sort of strategic policy work with which he has been associated is being replaced by systems implementation projects, and by "business process re-engineering" or product improvement (known as PI in the trade). The five big consulting companies have been pitching at this, offering global best practice in supply-chain management.

"Take systems implementation," he says. "This is not really management consultancy. This is technical support with a limited life cycle, dressed up to sound like something else. "It has reduced management consultancy to a product, but one that is a significant money-spinner for all that."

Thus, young executives with no experience but with a memory for the jargon are despatched as glorified technicians - "equipped with the painting-by-numbers methodology", Mr Murray says. It has influenced his decision to quit PwC. "You'll never make a fortune out of the sort of strategic work that I do."

Government contracts are not huge money earners, he says, in spite of a public perception that taxpayers' money is being salted away by consultants. He makes one comparison that puts it into perspective. "PwC is currently conducting a £5 million systems implementation job for a major multinational. That one job is worth three years' Government work in total." In his own case, his total fee for two major reviews of the Defence Forces from 1994 to 1998 was £500,000 - small money when spread over four years.

The Defence Forces reviews could be held up as one of several examples where consultants were hired as "hit men" to carry out cuts or recommend unpopular changes. "You can get away with that approach once or twice, but not for ever," Mr Murray says. "The great thing about the public service is that there is an open tendering process for any contract above £10,000. If your firm is perceived by one of the parties involved to conform to a particular agenda, it won't work - and Government departments know that, ultimately."

Some observers within the Defence Forces would not have agreed with him when Price Waterhouse was commissioned to carry out a second review - of the Naval Service and Air Corps only - after the dust had settled on the proposals to streamline the Army. "But then we didn't produce the sort of report they wanted. We didn't recommend cuts, but confirmed the multi-tasking roles of both services and outlined a re-equipment plan.

"In our view, that was consistent with the overall thrust of the first report in 1994."

The findings could have been buried, but for a commitment made by the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, in the Dail to publish it before he was aware of its contents. The Minister accepted the basic principle of separate forces with multi-tasking roles, but the detail on re-equipment and manpower levels is now the subject of the Government's own "review". However, Mr Murray believes that though the "margins may be tinkered with", the overall thrust cannot be altered. "Politically, it would be too high a price."

He singles out the Defence Forces project as among his three most satisfying commissions during 13 years with Price Waterhouse and subsequently PwC. The restructuring of Bord na Mona under Eddie O'Connor's direction gives him particular pride. "We had to take this monolith of a State company that was driving itself into the ground, turn it around and watch it rise like a phoenix again," he recalls. "We had to help to quell fears about huge job losses in the midlands. By sourcing out some of the business, we allowed people to improve their economic circumstances."

He also headed the investigation into Leaving Cert art exam results in 1995 on behalf of the then minister for education, Ms Niamh Bhreathnach. "Potentially, that was very difficult. How to point the finger without unravelling the system and destroying confidence in the exam process? And we were producing our report at a time when Leaving Cert students were going in to take their exams the following year."

It was a tense summer, and it also highlighted one of the great frustrations of public-sector work, he says. "We had to read all this stuff in the newspapers, knowing that the full story hadn't been told. The client confidentiality arrangement precludes one from making comment, even though there are many times when one would love to pick up the phone."

His last job was a "hugely enjoyable" report, under the Government's strategic management initiative, on recruitment to the public service in a booming economy. Though he had been there himself, he discovered that the public service has one of the most unfriendly approaches to seeking good staff. It is yet one of many instances where he believes there is an important role for the management consultant in policy formulation.

Combining public-sector commissions with work for the private sector - as he has done - also allows for some realism. He has also worked for voluntary and representative bodies, where sensitivity to the complex issues involved has been a major requirement.

Independence is the imperative at all times. "Having worked for all 15 Government Departments, I know that we would not survive in this game if we became part of the system," he says.

One cannot even stick a political label on him, try as one might. Yes, he did a project for Fianna Fail - PwC was hired to advise on re-organisation of administration at national headquarters. But he is now working for a firm where one of the partners is a former adviser to former Labour leader, Mr Dick Spring - Mr Greg Sparks.

"One cannot be seen to be a hostage," he says. A referee? "No, honest broker," he says. He has built his reputation on that.