Parks, Culture and Sport offers a substantial amount of funding to community organizations and programs, ranging from the now crippled Active Families Benefit tax, the Royal Saskatchewan Museum and a few Francophone initiatives throughout the province. The ministry has experienced some ebbs and flows in its staffing but it has remained a fairly consistent entity.
Culture, Parks and Sport employed six consulting firms in the years examined. These included:
- Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP. 2013-2014. $60,109.00: World's second largest professional services network. It has 157 firms across the world that are under its fold, largely providing tax, assurance, and advisory services. PwC was contracted to oversea Lean implementation across Saskatchewan ministries.
- Westmark Consulting LLP 2012-2013. $65,575.00: Westmark is a management consulting service provider specifically gauged towards lean structures and businesses. Westmark Consulting LLP is based in Vancouver, run by Greg Shea the co-founder and partner, Haneef Chagani co-founder and partner, and Jie Feng a partner. While it was still operating independently, as of 2014 it came under the control of PwC (Price Waterhouse Cooper).
- BB Consulting Services. 2012-2013. $60,336.00: The firm was tasked with doing IT for the department.
- McNair Business Development Inc. 2012-2013. $99,400.00: McNair focuses on marketing and business management in its consulting work. To a lesser extent they also have researchers and ‘thought leaders’, which essentially means speakers and people to conduct seminars. It is based in Regina and is headed by founder and President Doug McNair.
- Perspect Management Consulting Inc. 2012-2013. $244,002.00: Services are geared towards management strategies and efficiency in the workplace. Additional information was hard to find as the jargon of consulting companies often says several things but means nothing. It was started by Colin Mcallister, who has a history with the government of Saskatchewan as a former employee and consultant, primarily focused on promoting Lean initiatives. His employment with the Saskatchewan government is as follows:
- · Lean Transformation Leader at Saskatchewan Ministry of Tourism, Parks, Culture and Sport from December 2011 – October 2012
- · Ogranizational Change Consultant / Enterpise Portfolio Manager Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority April 2013 – April 2014
- · Lean Consultant Saskatchewan Gaming Corporation March 2012 – December 2014
- Trails Work Consulting 2008-2009. $50,383.00: Trails Work is a consulting firm based out of Sioux Falls, North Dakota that provides expertise on snowmobile and ATV trails.
Consulting trends for this department were fairly innocuous compared to other agencies. Across the surveyed years the annual total paid to consulting agencies totalled: $60,109.00 in 2013-2014, $469,313.00 in 2012-2013, $50,383.00 in 2008-2009, and $0.00 in 2005-2006.
The two years under $100,000 represent only one contract each year, which when looking at the 2006-2006 result of $0 being spent on consulting firms not terribly surprising. The 2012-2013 total of $469,313.00 is the largest sum spent on consulting across the board for this department,
Following the trend that has been noted in media reports, more spending on consultants occurred after the Sask Party took office in 2008-2009.
Graphics by Kendall Latimer
Parks downloadable spreadsheet (Excel file)