TAFE New South Wales has been criticised for commissioning a $90,000 report on its rivals.

TAFE got the Boston Consulting Group to examine the Vocational Education and Training market (VET), specifically comparing TAFE NSW's position and performance against its competitors.

The report claimed that the VET market was growing in size and competitiveness alongside changes in the expectations of students and employers.

But the report found: “TAFE NSW lags the competition in responding to these market changes”.

“The current TAFE NSW model was developed for different market conditions and policy approach to VET in NSW,” it stated.

When the report came out, NSW Minister for Skills John Barilaro expressed disappointment that TAFE NSW's operations appeared outdated compared to its competitors.

Mr Barilaro said TAFE was too expensive, and that the state had “to look at those overhead costs to bring downward pressure”.

The State Opposition said the Government was looking to justify deeper cuts to TAFE.

It pointed to the fact that one of the private colleges used in the comparisons, the Australian Careers Network, was recently raided by the Australian Federal Police as part of a fraud investigation.

“This report commissioned by the Baird Government cannot be real in using private colleges that are being investigated for fraud as some sort of benchmark for our public vocational education system,” Labor's skills spokesperson Prue Car said.

This week, TAFE NSW managing director Jon Black defended the report.

“The detail in the report that is specific about ACN is only about relative investment in capital - it is not about performance,” he said.

“Indeed the report explicitly states that ACN is not to be used as a benchmark.”

Mr Black said the report was necessary after Commonwealth reforms that left TAFE NSW to compete with rivals.

“TAFE spends about $2 billion a year of public money,” the managing director said.

“It is absolutely critical that we get the best information to inform this organisation so we can set up for continued success in the market.”

But the Greens do not accept the claims about the ACN, given that the front page of the report dates the document to 2015, before ACN was raided.

Mr Black said he received the report in April 2016, but Greens MP David Shoebridge said it appeared that BCG had backdated the document to avoid criticism.

“When Boston Consulting were facing criticism for including a particularly dodgy private provider called ACN as a comparative for TAFE they responded by saying the report was written in 2015 which was before the ACN was raided by federal police,” Mr Shoebridge said.

“We now know that response was untrue.”

BCG has issued a statement confirming that the report had been delivered before the AFP raids.

“The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) was engaged by TAFE NSW in January 2015 to analyse the vocational education and training (VET) market in NSW,” the statement said.

“In March 2016, TAFE asked us to prepare for public release a summary of the analysis from this work, which we did.

“This summary did not include information on any developments in the sector after 2015.

“This report was delivered to TAFE NSW on April 6, 2016, before the police raids on the ACN on 12 April 2016.”