Page 2959 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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position to use things like electronic payslips and save paper and effort when people are trying to find a payslip and cannot? I speak from experience there.
The other area I would just like to comment on is procurement support services—this is always a difficult, controversial area—and put a brief plug in because PAC is currently doing an inquiry on this. It was touched on to some degree at the estimates hearing. We talked about social tendering and the timeliness of the government’s responses, particularly when there are large and complex tenders and particularly if for some reason the government decides that the original tender could not be proceeded with exactly as per tendered. The poor tenderers could be sitting around for a long time trying to find out what was going on. There are also some questions with respect to the tenderers and the stimulus package.
I guess my final comment would be that I think shared services could well be an area where the government could consider the possibility of some increased investment with the aim of producing overall efficiency dividends. This might be an area where there could be comparatively painless efficiency dividends, which is, of course, what we all want.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Minister for Transport, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Minister for the Arts and Heritage) (12.15): I thank Mr Smyth and Ms Le Couteur for their contributions. I will take on board some of the supplementary questions which Mr Smyth asks. I do not have answers to some of those issues here. I must say, Mr Smyth, I am more than happy to seek to pursue them or, alternatively, I would be more than happy to arrange for Mr Vanderheide, the head of Shared Services, to provide a briefing to you. It might be more useful to you in the context of those issues you raise around benchmarking and assessment of outcomes and output, and I am sure Mr Vanderheide—
Mr Smyth: That would be lovely. Thank you.
MR STANHOPE: I will ask my office to arrange that with Mr Vanderheide and you. I am very aware, Mr Smyth, of your continuing scepticism about costings and cost savings. The savings that are revealed in the budget are real. It is a fact, Mr Smyth, that the ACT Shared Services Centre is a model of successful co-location of services; it is. Mr Vanderheide would be in a position to advise you of the representations that we have received from other jurisdictions around Australia—the successful aspects of the model, why it has worked and the way in which it has worked.
I do not disagree that there were teething issues with the Western Australian introduction to shared services, but I understand that the Western Australian shared services centre is achieving very significant savings for the Western Australian government. The ACT Shared Services Centre certainly is, and it has from the outset. I can do no more than point you to the budget papers to reveal that the savings declared and claimed in relation to shared services have in fact been achieved. I can give you that assurance. I understand and acknowledge, and I will pursue with you, those other issues. It might be that we will never agree on this, Mr Smyth, but those are the facts as I see them and present them. I am sure you will continue to agitate.
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