Burnham Vowed to End ‘40 Years of Neoliberalism’. Now a US Consultancy Giant Is Helping Write His 10-Year Plan

News | By Matt, Editor

Andy Burnham walked into Downing Street promising to end “40 years of neoliberalism”. Four months on, the plan that is meant to deliver it is being worked on with help from Boston Consulting Group, one of the three biggest management consultancies on the planet. The Times revealed the firm’s role, and the government has confirmed it to Politico.

No 10’s line is that it’s one consultant giving “specific specialist advice”. That hasn’t calmed anyone down. The loudest fury is coming from the Prime Minister’s own side of politics, and it lands just as the 10-year plan itself is slipping into next year.

Key facts

• Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a US firm, is helping with parts of the 10-year plan, first reported by The Times.
• The government says BCG is providing “a single consultant only” and that its support is limited to “specific specialist advice”. No fee has been published.
• Burnham told The Economist the plan “may go into the new year”, with no “firm landing zone” yet, as The Telegraph reported on 5 November.
• In 2023 Rachel Reeves promised Labour would “slash government consultancy spending” and aim to cut it in half.
• During Covid, BCG staff working on Test and Trace were billed at up to £6,250 a day, according to figures reported by The Guardian in 2020.

“A new path from the one we have been on for 40 years”

Burnham’s big pitch when he took over Labour in July was that Britain took “a series of wrong turns in the 1980s”. Political power was centralised, he said, and economic power privatised. The country “surrendered control of the essentials”, and his government would do things “differently”. The Daily Mail reported him saying successive Labour governments had failed to undo “40 years of neoliberalism”.

Have your sayTap to comment

'It's an end to neoliberalism and trickle-down economics which did not trickle down very much at all.'

Andy Burnham signals that he will take a ‘very different’ political direction when he becomes Prime Minister, promising a more 'inclusive approach' to government. pic.twitter.com/puT43S6E5f

— LBC (@LBC) July 2, 2026

It is hard to think of anything more 1980s, or more neoliberal in the sense he means, than calling in a US management consultancy to help write the government’s vision for the next decade. That’s the charge his critics on the left are making, and it’s not a stretch.

The left turns on No 10

Green Party leader Zack Polanski went furthest. “Aside from an obvious point that you don’t appoint companies like the Boston Consulting Group if you have any actual intention of ending 40 years of neoliberalism,” he said, BCG “must be removed from this project”.

Polanski also attacked the firm over its past links to a US-backed plan for post-war Gaza. BCG has said that work was not authorised and has disavowed it, Politico reports.

Andy Burnham has appointed the US consultancy giant BCG into the heart of Downing Street to draw up his 10 Year Plan for the country.

Last year they worked with Donald Trump on his plan for a 'Gaza riviera' to permanently ethnically cleanse Gaza.

There are no words. pic.twitter.com/52lVWFKvYE

— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) November 9, 2026

Investigative journalist Paul Holden called it “so, so, so bleak” that big chunks of the plan had been handed to BCG. Writer Adam Ramsay, author of a book called Abolish Westminster, put it more simply: Burnham said he wanted to fix Westminster, then brought in a firm whose kind of work is part of the problem.

This is just so, so, so bleak.

The development of big chunks of Burnham's much vaunted Ten Year Plan have been outsourced to the Boston Consulting Group, one of the world's three biggest management consultancies.

Most recently, BCG was revealed to be a contractor in the Gaza… https://t.co/BSyOW1izgB

— Paul Holden (@pauleholden) November 8, 2026

Andy Burnham said he wanted to fix Westminster. But he’s got the Boston Consulting Group in to write his ten year plan – as though massive outsourcing to the big consultancies isn’t a huge part of the problem! pic.twitter.com/A1WgcRguem

— Adam Ramsay (@AdamRamsay) November 9, 2026

Labour’s consultancy promise

There’s a second problem, and it’s Labour’s own. Reeves told the 2023 party conference that consultancy spending had “almost quadrupled in just six years”. If a department wanted outside help, she said, it would have to prove value for money, “and if they cannot, then that request will be denied”. In government, Labour brought in new controls with ministerial sign-off for consultancy spend over £600,000.

The record since is mixed. The government says it cut consultancy spending by more than £600m in 2024/25, to a five-year low. But data firm Tussell found wider public sector management consultancy procurement rose to £3.7bn in the same year, City AM reported. Both can be true, depending on what you count, which is rather the point. Nobody outside Whitehall can easily check.

There’s a simple question No 10 hasn’t answered publicly: what is BCG being paid, and is it on a government contract or working for free? If it’s one consultant, the figure should be easy to publish.

Why it matters

The 10-year plan is supposed to be the whole point of this government. Healey’s first Budget left the hard calls on welfare and defence for later, and No 10 says welfare reform will feature in the plan. Now it’s late, and its authors include a firm Burnham’s own rhetoric was aimed at. It fits a pattern. His buy-British pledge ran into a £2.4bn satellite contract with a US favourite. His devolution push won warm words from the SNP. And on Europe, he told his Cabinet to keep quiet until the next Parliament.

Supporters will say every government uses advisers, and one consultant on one strand of work is hardly a takeover. That’s fair as far as it goes. But it was Labour that set the test, not us. It promised to halve this sort of spending and to be different from the governments that leant on consultants. It also promised openness, then kept the digital ID machinery running after saying it had been scrapped.

Our view

A prime minister who spent years telling voters the country had been sold off to private interests shouldn’t need a US consultancy to tell him what his own plan says. If Burnham’s vision is as clear as he claims, his ministers and half a million civil servants can write it. Publish the contract, publish the fee, and let voters judge whether this is the break with the past he promised or more of the same with a northern accent.

Should private consultancy firms be paid to help write government plans? Vote in our poll below.

Sources

• Politico London Playbook, 9 November 2026: government says BCG provides “a single consultant only”; Polanski quote; BCG disavowed Gaza work
• The National, 9 November 2026: summary of The Times report on BCG’s role
• The Telegraph, 5 November 2026: plan may slip to the new year
• Daily Mail, July 2026: Burnham’s “40 years of neoliberalism” speech
• Civil Service World, October 2023: Reeves pledge to halve consultancy spending
• GOV.UK: new consultancy controls
• City AM: Tussell £3.7bn figure and government’s £600m savings claim
• The Guardian, 14 October 2020: Test and Trace consultancy day rates

Main image: Prime Minister Andy Burnham at the Hare pub, UK Prime Minister, CC BY 4.0, with a Boston Consulting Group office reception, Syced, CC0. Social images also use photos by Alan Hughes (CC BY-SA 2.0), Bristol Green Party (CC0) and Lauren Hurley / No 10 Downing Street (OGL 3).

Related

• £2.4bn Skynet Deal: Burnham’s Buy-British Pledge Meets Lockheed Favourite
• Burnham’s ‘Deeper Devolution’ Plan Wins Praise From the SNP Leader Who Wants to Break Up Britain
• Burnham Gags His Cabinet on Europe Until the ‘Next Parliament’