One of the big four consultancy firms will receive almost $8.5 million in taxpayers’ money over the next year to help design a new agency to monitor safety issues associated with Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS pact.

The Defence Department contract with EY, also known as Ernst & Young, comes amid a growing debate about the federal public service’s reliance on advice from external consultants for tasks that would previously have been performed in-house.

The federal government is establishing a new regulator to oversee safety issues relating to the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. Credit: US Navy

The Albanese government announced in March that it would create a new agency, known as the Australian Nuclear-Powered Submarine Safety Regulator, to “regulate the unique circumstances associated with nuclear safety and radiological protection across the lifecycle of Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine enterprise”.

The regulator, which will sit within the Defence Department, will also monitor infrastructure and facilities associated with the AUKUS pact such as the yet-to-be determined east coast submarine base.