Scyne to axe 90 jobs in wake of dwindling Canberra contracts
The lay-offs include 10 partner-level staff and come nine months after the firm was spun off from PwC.
Scyne Advisory has announced a restructure that will claim around 90 jobs, including 10 partner-level roles, in response to reduced government spending on external consultants.
In an email to staff on Thursday, CEO Richard Gwilym said the restructure came after efforts to stabilise the business in the nine months since its formation, when PwC sold its public sector consulting arm to Allegro Funds for $1.
“Our initial objective was stabilisation, but we are now shifting to a more focused strategy, prioritising areas where we believe we can have the greatest impact,” he said.
“The resulting restructure will mean approximately 90 roles have been identified as impacted, including more than 10 managing director roles.”
Gwilym said Scyne was grappling with an “undeniably tightened” market where work had become increasingly scarce as the government reined in its use of external consultants.
“This has resulted in the need to make some changes to our business to create the capacity for increased investment in areas of identified strategic importance.”
“In doing so, we have overlayed an assessment of both market conditions and the size and scale of capability in each of our markets.”
Scyne had made “every effort” to contact those affected by the job cuts and had begun a consultation process with them.
“Providing them with support during this time remains our top priority,” he said.
“All of them have helped to establish our business, and I want to thank them all for their contribution … You have my word we are doing all we can to support people who have been impacted.”
The changes would allow Scyne to pursue investment in “areas of identified strategic importance”, he said.
The government’s spending on consultancy services was proportionally greater than any other country, according to the final report of the parliamentary committee into the sector.
"In the past two decades the Australian government has relied increasingly on consultants to undertake work for the Australian Public Service (APS), with the bulk of work performed by the Big Four consulting firms (Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC),” the report, released last month, said.
"Increased use of consultants has limited the capability growth of the APS, given rise to occasions of serious conflict of interest, and been accompanied by questions about transparency.
"It has also resulted in enormous costs to the APS for work that is often opaque and, in some instances, raised genuine questions regarding value for money."
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