A Deloitte consultant has been appointed day-to-day head of the government’s IT monitoring bureau BIT, despite recommendations that the job be kept out of consultants’ hands, the NRC reports.

A parliamentary commission last year concluded a lack of expertise and interest among politicians and civil servants had given consultants and external suppliers too much say in government IT projects.

As a result, many were run chaotically and with poor results. This, the report said, meant external consultants should not be given key roles.

Although the head of the IT monitoring office, which is charged with preventing costly IT failures, is technically a civil servant, housing minister Stef Blok has brought in the Deloitte consultant for six months.

The decision has been criticised by opposition MPs.

’Putting an outside consultant in charge does not mean you have an independent bureau,’ D66 parliamentarian Kees Verhoeven told the paper. ‘Blok has opted to let external consultants monitor the work of other external consultants. This is repeating previous mistakes.’