Western Sydney University consultants paid almost $3k a day, leaked documents show, as redundancies loom

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Western Sydney University is finalising plans for voluntary redundancies involving hundreds of staff as it battles a projected deficit. Staff are furious university management has engaged highly paid consultants and suggest they are contributing to the financial pain.

Transcript

00:00At Western Sydney University, the invoices speak for themselves. At least seven consultants

00:08being paid on daily rates starting at more than $1,000 a day. One consultant getting

00:14$85,000 for five weeks work, plus rebates for tolls and parking. Another is being paid

00:21$10,000 a week as the university enacts a change management process that will mean 191

00:27net job losses. It's the most chaotic change process I've ever seen and that makes people

00:31scared. It also makes some people very, very angry. The people we've brought on board have

00:35enabled us to save jobs. We started off with up to 400 jobs being lost at the beginning

00:40of the year and we're now at the point there will be zero forced redundancies. Students too

00:44are concerned about how their fees are spent. What we're seeing is a massive focus on profit

00:51and not keeping the place sustainable but keeping the place profitable, which is very different.

00:56The university's leader, though, says his consultant use is prudent and effective.

01:00Look, my starting point is that the use of consultants must be exceptional. In fact, the default

01:05is no. We would only engage outside specialists where firstly we need expertise that we don't

01:10have in house. A Senate inquiry into university governance has heard estimates the university

01:15sector pays at least $734 million a year on consultants. The top spenders are the University

01:22of Newcastle, Australian National University, followed by the University of WA. The use

01:28of consultants at government funded public universities is now so widespread that some sit on university

01:34boards. Critics say there's a lack of transparency, not just about how much consultants cost, but

01:40the reasons behind their decisions on job losses and course cuts. Universities defend the use

01:46of consultants saying they're needed to roll out systems like IT security. University management

01:51draw on consultancies in a very small way commensurate or proportionate to their overall budgets.

01:59the flashpoint on campus in a year of job cuts and financial pain.

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