Consulting firms have made millions off the failed sub deal

The $90 billion future submarine program may be dead in the water, but not without making a whole lot of management consultants rich first.  A quick search through AusTender reveals advisory firms have reaped millions from the bungled scheme, as government after government desperately tried to turn the dud program around. 

Some contracts are even paid up until the middle of next year. 

Feeding frenzy

Since the program was announced under Malcolm Turnbull in 2016, the government has thrown every advisory group it can get its hands on to try to fix the scheme. And as the biggest ever defence project, there was no shortage of firms lining up to clip the ticket. 

One of the biggest contracts appears to be a limited-tender deal with Frazer-Nash Consultancy for “professional engineering services” in April 2017. The contract was worth $8.5 million, and is set to run until April 2022. All we know about the work was that it was supporting the program’s “technical offices”.

The management advisory contracts continued in January 2019 when Silver Spirit Partners was given a $1.4 million deal to conduct “negotiation services” for the program. They ramped up in 2020 when the program was under serious scrutiny. In February 2020 the government turned to BMT Design for management advisory services of “modelling and analysis” of the program. This contract was worth $1.9 million.

In July 2020, consulting group Nova Defence was given a $805k contract for more “management advisory services” on the program. There are no further details of the deal on the public record. The same month, consulting group Gibbs & Cox were handed a two-year $3.3 million contract for more management advisory services, with that particular contract due to run until June 2022. 

While it’s by no means a full list of the companies that have profited off the failed project, it shows the largesse of the scheme goes way beyond the deal with Naval Group itself.