I worked in this space in one of the biggest issues is the kind of company and the kind of dysfunction within this company that causes them to think that hiring consultants externally is a good idea.

It's almost always not a good idea of course. It's a really really good way to minimize risk if you have some terrible position in government where there's no upside to performance but there's a huge downside to making the wrong decision that blows things up. You bring in external consultants they put a stamp on some solution which they can't ever implement and you can just point to them and say wasn't my fault.