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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 7 Hansard (19 October) . . Page.. 1838 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

Although I have been talking about greater individual rewards, this will not increase the overall burden on the taxpayer. All the senior jobs in the ACT public service are currently being reviewed and evaluated by teams of experienced consultants to ensure that we retain only those jobs that can be justified at the executive level. The jobs will be assessed against, among other things, the skills required and the importance of the services they provide to the community. They will no longer be justified by way of no longer relevant Australian Public Service classifications and standards. There will be fewer executive jobs at the end of this process, more than offsetting the increased rewards.

The redesign process used by the consultants will ensure that the only executive jobs we have are ones that call for the highest level of management and professional skills and involve responsibility for delivering major services to the taxpayer and the Government. The new employment arrangements featured in the Bill will provide the opportunity and freedom to apply best practice in management. They will encourage an environment in which executives can use their skills and creativity and exercise judgment in risk management. The freedom given by the Bill will allow us to actively develop an esprit de corps, to weld together a team of executives who know what their objectives are in providing service to the community and who are highly motivated to achieve them.

Mr Speaker, while we are embarking on a series of public service reforms, we are also extending one of the cornerstones of public employment. We remain absolutely committed to the merit principle. This Bill will amend the Public Sector Management Act to require that chief executives, like all other staff, be chosen on a formal merit basis, except for short-term "acting" arrangements where judgments must be made and local and recent experience is particularly relevant. The failure of the previous Government to include this requirement in the Act was, in our view, a major omission.

Some of the most important features of the Bill are the transitional arrangements it puts in place for existing chief executives and SES officers. Under these transitional arrangements all existing chief executive and SES offices will be declared vacant. The existing officers will continue to do their jobs during the transitional period but on a temporary basis. No doubt many of these officers will be well suited to the new jobs that are created after the job evaluation I have already referred to. The Bill makes it possible to offer an executive contract to such an officer without the job being advertised, as long as the work is at a similar level to the officer's previous job. On the other hand, some of the new jobs will differ significantly from the existing ones and there will be no obvious person for the job within the group of executives. Jobs in this category will be advertised and filled by competitive selection, using the new employment arrangements.

Any of the existing chief executives or SES officers who are not placed in one of the new jobs will be offered early retirement under arrangements included in the Bill. These arrangements are based on existing arrangements, but adapted to work with the new employment arrangements. A further effect of the transitional provisions is that, until existing chief executives and SES officers sign one of the new executive contracts, accept an early retirement payment, become an officer at a non-executive level or make

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