Why Capability Should Be the Goal of Every Consultancy Project

A consultancy project can deliver an excellent answer and still leave the client weaker.

The immediate problem is solved. The report is persuasive. Senior leaders are satisfied. But the knowledge used to reach the answer sits outside the organisation, the internal team has observed rather than participated and a new contract is needed when the next version of the problem appears.

This is not always the result of bad intent. Traditional consultancy models are designed to provide expertise and capacity quickly. Clients under pressure may understandably want somebody else to take ownership of the work. Yet repeated outsourcing of difficult thinking can gradually reduce the organisation’s confidence and ability to act for itself.

Capability should therefore be an explicit goal of every consultancy project, not a hopeful by-product.

The dependency problem

Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington’s critique in The Big Con argues that governments can become less capable when core functions and knowledge are repeatedly outsourced. Consultancy firms may also have commercial incentives that do not naturally align with making themselves unnecessary.

Having worked inside government and later within a large professional services firm, I recognise important parts of this critique.

Consultants can bring real value. They can mobilise quickly, provide specialist expertise, work across organisational boundaries and bring challenge that is difficult to generate internally. Large firms can draw on significant networks and delivery infrastructure.

The concern is not that external support exists. It is how that support is used and what remains after it ends.

A client that repeatedly buys answers without developing the ability to frame problems, evaluate evidence and lead implementation becomes dependent. The consultancy may continue delivering value, but the public institution’s own capacity has not grown.

The person who sells should not disappear

A further weakness in parts of the consultancy market is the gap between sale and delivery.

Clients often choose a firm because of the confidence, experience and judgement of a senior partner. Once the work begins, much of the delivery may be completed by less experienced staff. Junior consultants can be highly capable, but the client has not necessarily purchased the day-to-day involvement that created trust during the bid.

This model is commercially efficient because senior time can be spread across multiple engagements. It is not always the best fit for small, sensitive or highly contextual public sector work.

Citizenry takes a different view: the person the client meets is the person who delivers the work. Former senior public servants bring experience directly into the project rather than acting mainly as sales leadership. This reduces the time required to learn how government works and allows advice to be shaped by people who have held comparable responsibilities.

Co-production is not a softer form of delivery

Capability-building consultancy involves working with the client, but this should not be confused with avoiding ownership or difficult recommendations.

Co-production is rigorous when roles are clear. External practitioners can lead analysis, structure the work and provide an independent view. Internal colleagues contribute knowledge of the organisation, relationships and practical constraints. Decisions are developed through a process that both sides understand.

This produces several benefits.

The recommendation is more likely to reflect operational reality. Internal people understand how conclusions were reached. Assumptions can be challenged from both perspectives. Knowledge is distributed rather than held in a small external team.

The work may be less dramatic than presenting a finished answer after weeks behind closed doors. It creates more durable value.

Transfer the method, not only the output

A consultancy project usually produces visible deliverables: a strategy, operating model, review, training course or implementation plan. Capability depends on what the client learns through producing and using those deliverables.

External teams should make their methods visible. How was the problem framed? Why were certain stakeholders interviewed? What criteria were used to assess options? How were risks prioritised? What evidence would cause the recommendation to change?

Templates and tools can help, but capability is not transferred by leaving a folder of documents. People need to practise the method on real work, receive feedback and understand where judgement is required.

In training and facilitation projects, this means designing for application rather than content coverage. In policy consultancy, it means involving internal teams in analysis and option development. In delivery work, it means strengthening governance and decision-making rather than operating them indefinitely on the client’s behalf.

Build the relationship around exit

The end of a consultancy project should be considered at the beginning.

What will the organisation need to do without external support? Who needs to own the work? Which skills, relationships and systems must be in place? What would a successful handover look like beyond the transfer of files?

This does not mean every engagement must end quickly. Some challenges require sustained external capacity or specialist support. But the direction should remain clear.

A consultancy that builds capability may continue working with the client because new challenges arise, not because the original knowledge has been retained outside the organisation.

That is a healthier basis for a long-term relationship.

Clients also shape the model

Dependency is not created only by suppliers. Public organisations under intense pressure may commission external teams to take problems away. Internal staff are too busy to participate. Leaders want a clear answer by a fixed date. Procurement rewards certainty and volume of deliverables rather than learning.

These conditions push even well-intentioned projects towards substitution rather than capability-building.

Clients can change this by including capability outcomes in the brief. They can identify internal counterparts with protected time, ask bidders how knowledge will be transferred and assess the experience of the people who will actually deliver. They can measure success partly through what the organisation can do afterwards.

They can also be realistic. Capability-building requires participation. It may initially demand more internal effort than simply receiving a report.

Capability is public value

Public bodies will always use external expertise. They should. No organisation can or should retain every specialist capability permanently, and independent challenge has genuine value.

The public value test is whether the intervention strengthens the institution as well as completing the assignment.

A good consultant helps solve the difficult problem in front of the client. A better one also helps the client recognise, understand and solve the next difficult problem with less external support.

That principle sits at the centre of Citizenry’s approach: bring useful experience from outside, work alongside the people inside and leave the organisation more capable than it was found.