Enlarge image
Federal Audit Office (archive photo from 2017)
Photo: imago / Steinach
What is an external consulting service?
And what costs do the federal ministries have to disclose to parliament?
Preferably as little as possible, if the Federal Ministry of Finance has its way.
According to its definition, not everything that is advice has to be called that.
This is provided for in the draft of a current advisory definition of the federal government, which the Federal Audit Office (BRH) examined in the past few weeks.
Various activities should therefore not be defined as consulting:
External support services are therefore generally not advice for the federal government, even if they concern central tasks of ministries.
According to the definition of the Ministry of Finance, mandates for law firms, for example for civil or criminal proceedings or their preparation, are not included in advisory services that are subject to disclosure.
If external speeches write for ministers or senior civil servants, this should also not count as advice.
Studies written by external authors should also not fall under the definition of advice.
The Ministry of Finance wants to stick to the planned changes
The BRH inspectors have now sent the Bundestag budget committee an internal audit report on the draft.
The eleven-page report, which heavily criticizes the planned regulation, is available to SPIEGEL.
Accordingly, none of the exemptions from the reporting obligation listed by the Ministry of Finance convinced the BRH.
External support services for ministries should continue to be listed in the reports to parliament, stating the costs, according to the audit report, "since there may be increased risks to administrative integrity regardless of whether a service is to be viewed as advice or support."
Writing manuscripts of speeches, preparing studies or providing legal support is also advice for the BRH - and consequently the costs would have to be published.
Sven-Christian Kindler, budget spokesman for the Greens parliamentary group, criticizes the planned exemptions: “The federal government makes itself extremely dependent on private consulting firms.
Conflicts of interest are inevitable with external advice.
Not taking this into account in the definition is incomprehensible. "
The finance ministry of Olaf Scholz (SPD) wants to hold on to its stance, as it announced to the BRH.
The consultant's report "expressly (only) pursues a budget-specific goal".
The report should only give the budget committee an overview of the payments from the federal budget for external advisory services.
In February, in response to a request for a report from the green budget, the Ministry of Finance stated the cost of consulting, support and other external services for 2020 at 524 million euros - including expert reports, research contracts and studies.
The Greens had already asked this question in a small question in 2019.
At that time, the costs for the external services, which were also not individually broken down, were given as 722 million euros for 2017.