Page 2639 - Week 12 - Thursday, 16 November 1989
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rationalisation of office accommodation. The Schools Office currently is located in four separate locations and it is regarded as being an inappropriate and inefficient way of having the Schools Office divided in geographical locations in that way. The bringing together of all the elements into the one location will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of that office.
There is a need generally for us to rationalise office accommodation as a result of the demolition next year of parts of the South Building and the North Building as part of the redevelopment of Civic Square. So there will be a further need for redevelopment, and there is a feeling within the Government that ultimately we should seek to acquire our own assets in terms of office accommodation to house as much of our public service as is possible. In the long term we are currently entertaining a proposal to establish and build a government-owned, purpose-built building in the Tuggeranong Town Centre which would ultimately accommodate all the elements of the Education Department's administrative arm, but the division of the area into the Schools Office does not in any way detract from efficiency because of the different nature of the relationships between those areas.
What was important during the estimates debate was the discussion about the attribution of rental costs to various program areas. This has not always been the case and it could give a more effective estimate of the actual cost of operating program areas if the opportunity costs associated with rent were taken into account. The indications are that the people who are misrepresenting the cost of the move of the Schools Office to Tuggeranong at this time fail to take into account the opportunity costs associated with the current accommodation in the four areas that currently exist.
DR KINLOCH: I ask a supplementary question. Given the anxiety of staff in, obviously, Macarthur House or the four separate locations, would you be able to conduct a poll of staff about their future location and where they wish to be?
MR WHALAN: There have been some interesting debates in this city over many years, and I have just been going through some newspaper clippings back into the 1960s which were being used in another context. It has been significant that the most substantial population growth that has occurred in the ACT has been as a result of the compulsory transfer of departments from other cities throughout Australia to the ACT, and it has been a feature of the growth of the ACT. We as a government support the decentralisation of the public service by accommodation in the town centres, and I am sure that Dr Kinloch himself supports that particular policy - - -
Mr Wood: So does Mr Collaery.
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