DOGE is taking an ax to consulting, and the contracts being targeted show a major realignment in how the federal government wants to work with consultants under President Donald Trump.
Business Insider analyzed the data available on the White House DOGE office’s website to work out two things: what services DOGE deems a waste of money and, more broadly, what the government has been paying consultants to do.
In the weeks following Trump’s inauguration, contracts providing services related to DEIA and renewable energy were the first to be canceled.
IT and digital services have come under scrutiny and faced cuts in recent weeks.
Another trend in the data is cuts to blanket purchase agreements — an acquisition method that enables the government to easily purchase recurring products.
“You’re looking at a complete re-architecting of the services at the federal level,” Michael Mische, a former partner at KPMG and professor at USC’s Marshall School, told BI.
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10 of the federal government’s highest-paid consultancies are under particular scrutiny in the consulting crackdown, and so BI’s analysis focused on their contracts. The list includes Deloitte, Accenture, and Booz Allen Hamilton.
Here are five examples that help demonstrate what services are being targeted:
General Dynamics, computer systems design
The biggest estimated savings made from a single contract with one of the 10 consultancies so far comes from a General Dynamics IT contract.
DOGE claims to have saved $69.1 million from modifying a contract providing a “portfolio of integrated value-oriented technologies” to the Department of Education.
General Dynamics was “responsible for the technical management and integration of pivot IT infrastructure services,” per a description on the federal procurement data system.
Leidos, IT support services
Leidos holds a contract to provide “professional support services” to the Department of Health and Human Services, which aims to improve the government’s capabilities to “speed research that can improve the health of Americans.”
Services include security requirements, service desk support, application development and maintenance, local area network infrastructure support, IT infrastructure support, and cloud services.
The requirement for IT support services for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) appears to have been modified, saving $58.9 million from the multi-year contract, according to DOGE’s estimate.
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Booz Allen Hamilton, business operations support
$308,469 of services have been cut from a Booz Allen Hamilton contract with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
According to DOGE, the contract was a blanket purchase agreement with a ceiling of $660,000. The contract’s description said it aims to “support the planning for and improvements in business operations across the FDA.”
Booz Allen Hamilton makes most of its $10 billion in annual revenue from the US government.
Reuters
Guidehouse, DEI website support
DOGE estimates that $400,000 has been saved from a $1.2 million contract to provide “Diversity Equity Inclusion and Accessibility website and strategic planning” services to the Department of Commerce.
This contract was altered on 31 January 2025, soon after Trump signed executive orders targeting DEI initiatives for federal employees.
Similar examples include a contract for Booz Allen Hamilton to implement DEIA analytics on one of NASA’s data platforms and a contract for Deloitte to provide DEIA training for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Deloitte, staffing support for financial reporting
Deloitte was contracted to provide “a temporary staff augmentation solution to support budget operations” at the Export-Import Bank of the US.
One of the federal government’s common uses of contractors is to outsource to them for employees with technical expertise.
Deloitte contractors were directly involved in contributing to accurate financial reporting and ensuring transparency and compliance in budget matters.
$1.4 million has been saved from changes to the contract, roughly half of its maximum ceiling, according to DOGE.
According to BI’s analysis, of the 10 firms, Deloitte has had the highest number of contracts cut or modified so far.
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Why tech services?
Mische, who has been advising some of the affected firms in DC, told BI that these trends signal a shift toward a more commercial, value-driven approach employing consultants.
Mische said the government has been operating with a “patchwork” of systems, processes, and open-ended contracts. He said that the approach to improving and automating federal processes has been to follow the easiest path without addressing the underlying systems, known in business as “paving the cowpath.”
“The process doesn’t change, the organization doesn’t change, the service outcomes don’t change. But yet we’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars doing it,” said Mische.
The existing setup is not wholly the consultants’ fault, he added. They suggest alternatives, but 99% of the time the answer is, “If you don’t want to do the work, we’ll give it to somebody else.”
The Trump administration wants to overhaul how those services are delivered and prepare for more advanced technologies, eliminating the need for so many individual service contracts, he said.
Rather than “massive contracts for 300 or 400 million dollars and more, that take years and years to do,” Mische predicts that there will be much more emphasis on outcomes.
The government’s attitude will be, “Show me what you did and show me what I got,” he said, adding that fee-for-performance arrangements and measurable metrics for consulting services will likely be introduced.
“What I think we’re going to see under this administration is a much greater emphasis on design for business outcomes. Not automate the toll path that you’re on, but create a new freeway,” he said.
The five consultancies did not respond to BI’s requests for comment.
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