Federal organizations frequently violated their own procurement policies when awarding nearly a hundred contracts to the American consulting firm McKinsey & Company between 2011 and 2023.
In her report released Tuesday morning, the Auditor General of Canada, Karen Hogan, reveals having noted “frequent non-compliance” on all 97 contracts awarded to the firm during this 12-year period.
Ten federal departments and agencies, as well as 10 Crown corporations, have awarded contracts to McKinsey for professional services, such as management or information technology consulting services. “The extent of these instances of non-compliance varied from organization to organization. That being said, nine of the 10 departments and agencies, and eight of the 10 Crown corporations, had failed in one aspect or another of their procurement policies and directives for at least one contract,” the report reads. .
The value of contracts during this period totals $209 million, of which $200 million has been spent.
Organizations have also adapted certain procurement processes depending on the contractor, confirms the Auditor General’s investigation.
Following reports published last year noting the rapid growth in the value of contracts concluded between the federal government and McKinsey, a parliamentary committee asked the Office of the Auditor General of Canada to investigate these contracts.
Mme Hogan believes today that the firm had no political influence in government decisions. “We didn’t really see that [McKinsey] was involved beyond the expert advice offered through these contracts,” she clarified.
The audit is the first public review of contracts awarded to McKinsey & Company by state-owned companies.
McKinsey also made headlines in Quebec for its services offered to the CAQ government during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Insufficient assessments
M’s investigationme Hogan also reveals that the bid evaluation documentation was not sufficient to support the selection of McKinsey as the vendor. For example, the bid for a contract awarded by the Business Development Bank of Canada did not obtain the highest score.
For two other contracts awarded by the Canada Infrastructure Bank, no evaluation criteria were defined in the request for tenders or used in the evaluation of the bids. No explanation had been documented to justify the choice of McKinsey.
“In the absence of documentation supporting the selection of the bidder or explaining the reasons why the outcome of the procurement process did not meet the evaluation criteria, it is impossible to conclude that the organizations had made a good business decision or promoted value for money by awarding the contract to McKinsey & Company,” she notes.
Just one recommendation
Auditor Hogan makes only one recommendation in her report, which is to suggest that all federal organizations implement a process to identify conflicts of interest and keep a copy of it. “Rather than repeating these recommendations, we encourage departments, agencies and Crown corporations to implement the recommendations resulting from these previous audits and reviews,” she says.
“I think the government needs to take a step back to understand what is causing the findings we are making today. Is it because there are too many rules? Or is there another reason why people bend the rules? » she added during a press briefing with journalists.
The organizations have all indicated to his office that they accept the recommendation.
At a press briefing Tuesday afternoon, Minister of Public Services and Supply Jean-Yves Duclos said he welcomed the conclusions and accepted its recommendation.
Last year, internal audits already showed that federal ministries did not systematically follow certain administrative rules and procedures.