Page 3669 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 26 August 2009
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Department to balance its overall priorities, risks, accountabilities and financial management responsibilities.
This is absolutely scandalous, and it concerns me that TAMS may not be the only department that is operating like this. Mr Stanhope has his prints all over this department, as does Mr Hargreaves, and how many other departments do they have their prints over? How many other departments are affected in a similar way by political influence, by lack of financial transparency and by all the other management problems that the Ernst & Young report highlighted?
The extract reveals that the true source of the problem is at the ministerial level and at the chief ministerial level—Jon Stanhope and his predecessor, John Hargreaves. The litany of failures from the Hargreaves era is well known and includes the Tharwa bridge, the Gungahlin Drive extension, road maintenance backlogs which extend to some $25 million per year, car parking shortages, the ACTION bus timetable shambles and the closure of the Griffith library, to name a few. Now we have a new minister, Mr Stanhope, who looks like making the same mistakes of the past.
The report reveals that senior management has limited visibility of the department and the costs of activities. I will say that again: the report reveals that senior management has limited visibility of the department and the costs of activities. If senior management do not have this, if the minister does not have visibility, who does have visibility? Who is actually spending taxpayers’ money properly?
The financial section has no “sufficient” authority to exercise fiscal direction and control. There is “a perception that ‘limited consequences’ exist for overspending”. There is no ability to track and calculate forward purchase commitments, and it is unclear how Parks, Conservation and Lands’ asset management plan and maintenance schedules are included in the budget formulation process.
Other aspects of the report are of concern to the opposition. The Ernst & Young report says that there are still too many administrators in the department. Ten per cent of full-time equivalents are classified as management, corporate services or administrative support. This is far too high for a department where efficiencies should have been made due to integrations and economies of scale. Savings in this area can be achieved to a level of 10 to 15 per cent if administration was simplified.
The report slams the government for political influence which has stopped some areas of the department completing its work. The nature of this influence remains unclear after Mr Stanhope could not answer the question yesterday. I look forward to Mr Hargreaves’s contribution to this debate—if he feels he has any defence regarding his appalling tenure.
The report also says that management structures are a key focus of the review. There are particular concerns in relation to indicators not being aligned to day-to-day work and not measuring the right things. The workforce plan does not link well enough with service requirements and the asset management plans.
The report poses a key question to the government, and that is: how should the government structure services to ensure that TAMS can focus on core functional
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