New development: In-house consulting—a critical appraisal

The article will be of interest to practitioners around the world who are seeking to develop appropriate responses to their government's over-reliance on consultants. As part of this, Australia can serve as a case study on the use of in-house consulting firms to address this issue. While it is too early to distil lessons from the experience of the new Australian Government Consulting (AGC) unit, the article provides useful background and contextual information about the initiative, and discusses its chances of success. In addition, the article will be of interest to academics and researchers as the use of in-house consulting has received minimal attention in the literature on government's use of consultants.