Page 3506 - Week 11 - Thursday, 14 October 1993
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Decisions included in the budget are part of an integrated efficiency program designed to ensure maximum benefit to the ACT community. The strategy is not only targeted but quite specific in its intention. The Government quite consciously looks for measures that would give maximum benefit to the community. Accordingly, we have looked for those activities and functions that support the public service, not the ones that service the community. We have also looked for proposals that will have some benefits to staff, particularly in the areas of multi-skilling and enhanced career paths.
As I said in my budget speech, the major outcome from the program is expected to be a shift in resources from internal public sector activities to better services to the ACT community. For example, the consolidation of municipal services is designed to ensure that all opportunities for better cooperation, achievement of economies and multi-skilling are taken. This review will be conducted with unions, which are equally keen to make the municipal work force as efficient as possible. That might be a surprise to those opposite, but it is true. Another example is the continuation of the program of efficiency measures in ACTION, which is progressing on schedule and will result in savings to the ACT community of $10m per annum by 1994-95. Further examples are improved support for land servicing activities and rationalisation of workshops. Both of these offer opportunities to multi-skilled staff and to deliver more efficient services without a direct impact on the community.
A program of overhead cost reduction studies is also proposed. These studies will progressively work across all agencies and assist managers to find the true cost of service delivery and will recommend ways in which these costs can be reduced without affecting services to the community. A senior level committee, which is called the Efficiency Review Committee, has been established to oversee our efficiency review program on a whole-of-government basis. That committee is already functioning and is currently negotiating with agencies over the achievement and timing of savings. It is important for the Assembly to understand that the Government can go at only a certain speed in identifying areas where restructuring is practical and effective. As I said earlier, the Government is anxious to provide time for consultation before making decisions on such important matters, and we are particularly conscious of the dangers of making decisions with inadequate information.
While the Minister for Industrial Relations will go into this in more detail, at the time the Government was settling its budget we were also putting in place the means to progress the medium-term budget strategies. There is no point in seeking to force proposals on the work force when there is scope to consult about them. Accordingly, Mr Berry wrote to the unions in the context of enterprise bargaining, seeking their views about a joint and mutual cooperative approach to progressing the Government's budget targets concurrently with productivity improvements. Discussions on these proposals are proceeding well, Mr De Domenico. Unlike the Opposition, the Government is recognising the need to allow managers time to consult and the right of other stakeholders, including unions, to be consulted. I need to stress again that these processes are very targeted and are in no way a scatter gun approach.
In seeking global expressions of interest, the intention of the voluntary separation scheme was to assist management establish which staff were interested in a career move or in leaving the ACT public service for other reasons. The intention was for these interests to be matched to the restructuring process. We had proposed
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