APS: to cut or not to cut? [With poll]

BerraBoy68 said :

A serious recruiting freeze of 2-3 years would go a long way to making any of the required staffing cuts (and I mean a real freeze, not one where the status quo is maintained by allowing Directors etc. the ability to still recruit for priority positions, thereby making every position they advertise a priority position).

The problem with that is that there are positions, particularly technical ones where if the current staff member leaves there will be no-one in the organisation that would have the required skill set to do the job. If that job involves looking after a system or equipment that the department relies on you would be screwed if you weren’t able to advertise for a replacement. Alternatively they would end up getting a contractor in for more money, or outsourcing the system for even more money and worse service.

In my opinion there are a lot of things the government does and promises that it shouldn’t be sticking it’s noses into. Cut back on the nannying and let the public be responsible for themselves and then there would be quite a bit of savings.

The other waste of money is the mindset of the politicians going “hey we want to do this and it has to be done now” so everyone races round to do it in a rush, then it either gets put on the back burner or canned. What should be happening is when a decision is made to do something, don’t rush into it, give it a reasonable timeframe, consider how you are going to do it, consider the problems you’ll face and do it properly without wasting tonnes of money in the process.

“Pretty sure Google Maps could do a better job for free.”

Hey Einstein, where do you think the “magical” Google Maps get their information from????? Google source their information from various sources, particularly government/departmental ones.

TVStar said :

jasmine said :

The Toilet Map is useful if you are incontinent or have a gastro disease like Crohn’s, Colitis, IBS. This map helps those who migh otherwise find travel difficult.

Those sorts of things acutally help people, there is a lot more shite (excuse the pun) that could be cut before health assistance programs.

Pretty sure Google Maps could do a better job for free.

Probably could now, but that didn’t even exist when we first put it together. Must be 10 or 12 years ago now.

A serious recruiting freeze of 2-3 years would go a long way to making any of the required staffing cuts (and I mean a real freeze, not one where the status quo is maintained by allowing Directors etc. the ability to still recruit for priority positions, thereby making every position they advertise a priority position).

The APS is facing a serious aging workforce problem. They’d easily be able to cut around 40% of staff over this period if they wanted to.

Abolishing the entire Dept of Climate Change would be a good start

TVStar said :

Pretty sure Google Maps could do a better job for free.

…but surprisingly, it isn’t… yet…

When Howard first got in and removed tens of thousands of APS job, a fair few came back as contractors – at least in the Department I worked for. In this way, he was able to claim he cut the workforce (because wage spending went down) , whilst program funding went up… Of course, more than that increase was to pay for all the “new” contractors. Cutting the APS (in this way) is false economy. When I changed to another department a short while later, there was constant uproar from the stakeholders due to the constant changing of staff running the country-wide program, with no consistency of staff and no corporate knowledge being passed on. Anyhow, the bottom dollar always wins out to corporate knowledge…

Impossible to answer. Cut which services? If you talked about sacking the idiots who run Defence Procurement, for example, I’d be all for it. The question needs to be a little more granular.

Diggety said :

colourful sydney racing identity said :

http://www.lifeline.org.au

Another pertinent and well argued gem from CSRI.

If you have to be that way, try not trivialise and denegrate the great work that lifeline does please.

I am not denegrating the work that lifeline do – I am merely suggesting that you need to talk to someone.

jasmine said :

The Commonwealth public service is too top heavy. Get rid of the dead weight lingering at the top and ensure there are enough staff at the service end to ensure taxpayers get value for money. Get rid of performance bonuses. Why anyone in the APS should get a bonus for just doing their jobs is beyond me, particularly when changes are made to ensure the manager’s KPI’s are met and they can demonstrate initiative.

I know one manager who received a bonus for cutting staff in his area and it resulted in poor delivery of services, over-stressed staff struggling to meet deadlines and pressure on older staff to retire (despite the drive to maintain older workers). Many of the changes were fluff and nonsense made to increase the profile of his area but did nothing to add to services.

Get rid of efficiency dividends. They only produce inefficiency.

You could cut 50% of staff in the Corporate Services area of most departments who contribute near to nothing to actual delivery. It used to be the HR Manager oversighted all aspects of HR – OH&S, recruitment, personnel management, payroll. Now there is virtually a senior manager for all areas. Waste, waste, waste.

I pretty much agree, but any attempt to do it runs into the problem that it has to go through and be implemented by the same sort of people that you’re trying to cut.

bitzermaloney said :

Failing that the next step would be to privatise the public service.

You’d see some great efficency dividends acheived then.

That’s pure baloney. Having worked both sides of the fence I can tell you that what mascarades as “efficiency” in the private sector is actually just motion, motion, motion, with not much useful action. Sure, the APS can and should be cut down, but you should really consider how much of the “inefficiencies” are caused by having to baby private sector “stakeholders” through a change process.

Stopping some of the insanity that had one department offering voluntary redundancies to worker bees and shedding around 400 people because of budget problems and cutbacks, while simultaneously announcing a bulk recruitment round for SES would be a good start. That was just pure stupidity and no level of efficiency dividends, budget cuts and post-GFC belt tightening will stop the SES from being self serving and focussed more on how to look good on TV at estimates or pander to the Minister rather than serve the public, which is, after all, the point of a public service.

colourful sydney racing identity said :

http://www.lifeline.org.au

Another pertinent and well argued gem from CSRI.

If you have to be that way, try not trivialise and denegrate the great work that lifeline does please.

bitzermaloney said :

ps. could start by renouncing the ACT self gov act. It will cost the Fed’s more, but save the ACT significantly more.

And how, exactly, would that help the Federal budget?

bitzermaloney said :

You’d see some great efficency dividends acheived then.

Ah, the good old efficiency of the private sector myth. Get serious.

ps. could start by renouncing the ACT self gov act. It will cost the Fed’s more, but save the ACT significantly more.

Whaty woudl be the effect of sacking every second public servant… say, everyone whose staff id ends in an odd number?

I think it would be safe to say that we still receive more than “half” the current service that it provides, and you’d still be unlikely to spend twice as long waiting in queues and on the phone to speak with someone (except maybe Centrelink).

Granted there’s be an increase on the workload on those who remain and the APS 1 – 6’s could genuinely work overtime to claim their flex.

Failing that the next step would be to privatise the public service. You’d see some great efficency dividends acheived then.

Diggety said :

I voted “slash and burn”, but I’d like to reject the “Canberra is too full” part.

It’s no surprise that Canberra is Left, such unrealistic political beliefs and economic inefficiencies are only possible when you are relying on someone else’s money.

But it doesn’t really end there with loony Canberran’s, the above mechanism for artificial inflation of a house-of-cards economy, relies on one choice of governance style for continued existence, being Labor/Greens, which of course, spreads this problem to the wider Canberra community, i.e. not the APS.

So we end up voting the same, just to make sure we have a secure job with next to zero accountability. While those of us in academia, trades, private industry are (often) reluctantly forced to deal with the negative effects of those political parties and unbalanced supply/demand of property and infrastructure.

The politicians we rely on for services; are unrealistic, wasteful and out-of-touch.
The Public Servants we rely on for bread; have just left us the crust.

http://www.lifeline.org.au

I voted “slash and burn”, but I’d like to reject the “Canberra is too full” part.

It’s no surprise that Canberra is Left, such unrealistic political beliefs and economic inefficiencies are only possible when you are relying on someone else’s money.

But it doesn’t really end there with loony Canberran’s, the above mechanism for artificial inflation of a house-of-cards economy, relies on one choice of governance style for continued existence, being Labor/Greens, which of course, spreads this problem to the wider Canberra community, i.e. not the APS.

So we end up voting the same, just to make sure we have a secure job with next to zero accountability. While those of us in academia, trades, private industry are (often) reluctantly forced to deal with the negative effects of those political parties and unbalanced supply/demand of property and infrastructure.

The politicians we rely on for services; are unrealistic, wasteful and out-of-touch.
The Public Servants we rely on for bread; have just left us the crust.

jasmine said :

The Toilet Map is useful if you are incontinent or have a gastro disease like Crohn’s, Colitis, IBS. This map helps those who migh otherwise find travel difficult.

Those sorts of things acutally help people, there is a lot more shite (excuse the pun) that could be cut before health assistance programs.

Pretty sure Google Maps could do a better job for free.

Strip about 5000 out of the SES and EL levels of the APS.
Housing affordability crisis in Canberra ….. SOLVED.

The Toilet Map is useful if you are incontinent or have a gastro disease like Crohn’s, Colitis, IBS. This map helps those who migh otherwise find travel difficult. Those sorts of things acutally help people, there is a lot more shite (excuse the pun) that could be cut before health assistance programs.

TVStar said :

I think this could probably go: http://www.toiletmap.gov.au/

LOL what idiot thought of that and how much has been spent on that program?

The Commonwealth public service is too top heavy. Get rid of the dead weight lingering at the top and ensure there are enough staff at the service end to ensure taxpayers get value for money. Get rid of performance bonuses. Why anyone in the APS should get a bonus for just doing their jobs is beyond me, particularly when changes are made to ensure the manager’s KPI’s are met and they can demonstrate initiative.

I know one manager who received a bonus for cutting staff in his area and it resulted in poor delivery of services, over-stressed staff struggling to meet deadlines and pressure on older staff to retire (despite the drive to maintain older workers). Many of the changes were fluff and nonsense made to increase the profile of his area but did nothing to add to services.

Get rid of efficiency dividends. They only produce inefficiency.

You could cut 50% of staff in the Corporate Services area of most departments who contribute near to nothing to actual delivery. It used to be the HR Manager oversighted all aspects of HR – OH&S, recruitment, personnel management, payroll. Now there is virtually a senior manager for all areas. Waste, waste, waste.

Get rid of pointless vote buying programs in non-essential areas like sport, art and all those Government appointed Councils and Chairs that deal with sympbolic matters.

There are lots of projects on hold because staff can’t be found. This is one of the major reasons contractors are living it up right now.

Be interesting to see how it plays out.

Slash and burn. So many airheads and useless people in vague positions.

How about removing some of the management cruft and leaving the people who do the actual work alone?

Yeah, yeah. It’ll never happen.

I think this could probably go: http://www.toiletmap.gov.au/

Given the make up of the parliament, you would feel pretty safe if you worked in an area that had a focus on regions.