Victorian government departments spent an average of almost $135 million a year over the last five years on consultants, new figures from the state’s auditor general show.

The Victorian Auditor General’s Office says the combined consultancy bill from all state departments between 2017-2022 came to $671 million.

That includes around $75 million which went into the pockets of scandal-plagued firm PWC, which is still trying to contain the fallout from revelations it leaked confidential ATO information to clients.

Close to half of the total spend – $362 million – went to the five top consultants: KPMG, PWC, EY, Deloitte and Boston Consulting.

The figures also reveal a steady creep in yearly expenditure from around $120 million in 2017-18 to well in excess of $150 million a year in the last two financial years.

DHHS was the biggest spender on consultants, splashing out $146 million since 2017, followed by DTF which paid consultants $135 million.

VAGO notes that as the figures are based on annual reports, the actual spend is likely to be more, as departments only disclose details of contracts valued over $10,000.

“Many vendors present in this consultancy spend dashboard would have additional spend with the departments classified as contractor spend,” it says.

In 2020–21 the Victorian government spent about $20 billion on service contracts compared to $30 billion on government employees, VAGO says. 

The auditor general will table a spending audit of contractors and consultants in the state’s public service later this year.

The full dashboard is available here.