Page 3459 - Week 08 - Thursday, 23 August 2012
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We were especially concerned to hear that procurement does not keep timesheets or other data of staff activity on projects. Without this, how can client departments tell whether they are charging too much or too little for the service they provide? Without proper information we cannot tell if we can do better. In estimates we heard a number of reasons why the four per cent fee is leading to a surplus, including economies of scale, changing project structures and staffing matters. Given the surplus it seems that Shared Services Procurement is arguably charging other departments too much.
Turning to HR, we also see issues there. In the budget estimates committee hearing it appeared that human resources were in the early stages of reviewing their own processes to ensure cost effectiveness. They are looking at consistency of process. We think it is very important that they look at process duplication because we believe there may be inefficiencies there. We know the Legislative Assembly was able to save money by providing its own human resources services and hopefully Shared Services will be looking at these kinds of examples in revising its own service provision.
I would like, finally, to make some comments about social procurement. I must say that we were really expecting to have seen much more progress from the government on social procurement. It is just over two years now since the previous Chief Minister, Mr Stanhope, announced at the launch of Cafe Ink in the Woden Library that the ACT government would commence social tendering. One year on, at June 2011, not much progress had been made, so the Greens moved a motion in this place calling on the ACT government to commence three demonstration projects by June 2012. The government agreed to do this at the time.
However, when the time came for the government to report on this, two of the three demonstration projects it referred to were ones that did not involve social ventures and the ACT government already had in place years before Mr Stanhope’s announcement. One of those was for graffiti removal and the other was with Spotless. Shared Services advised, through the recent estimate processes, that in order to make progress on social tendering it would start employing a dedicated full-time senior officer to promote awareness across directorates and agencies. Shared Services also advised that it had guest speakers come along to its senior officer forums to educate staff about social procurement.
It seems that what we have seen for the last term of this Assembly is a lot of talk but not a lot of action as far as social procurement goes. What the government really needs to do is identify those projects it believes it can procure from social ventures and pursue a single select tender that has the right people and the right balance between financial costs and social outcomes. These projects can act as demonstration projects to the rest of the ACT public service and will do much to encourage uptake.
Shared Services seems to have some issues around costs and duplication, but basically is going okay. I note that government goes in phases. You put all the services in one bunch, a shared services model, and then the tide will turn and they go back to agencies. I think it is a bit unclear which is the best model. We have the Shared Services model now. I commend the government, but I think it needs to do its work
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