Deckchairs rearranged on the Titanic

goggles13 said :

well Health and Ageing announced VRs this morning……………

Voluntary redundancies!

Sanity may now be beginning to prevail. It should be mandatory for every APS agency to offer these at a rate of 10% of your salary for every year of service. Watch the efficiencies roll on!

Anna Key said :

The main problem with Health and Ageing wasn’t Roxon but how Jane Halton has terrorised the SES who in turn terrorise the middle management. Anyone vaguely imaginative is forced out, while those that dot the i’s, cross the t’s and never make a decision are rapidly promoted.

The main problem is that because of the shite Parliament situation, everyone, from the Minister down, is stuck in ‘cover your arse’ mode. The pink batts disaster etc didn’t help that situation though!
That means there is no more ‘frank and fearless advice’ from the PS anymore; it’s all neutral, non-wave-making arse covering…. lame times.

well Health and Ageing announced VRs this morning……………

EvanJames said :

PantsMan said :

Given the Commonwealth Health Department does not employ any doctors or nurses, but rather develops ‘policy’ like Kevin Rudd’s Your Health website, I don’t think it could be a bigger waste of money. We sent a letter to Health once about technical amendments and a year later someone who spoke at about three words per minute rang us and said that they were going to think about it. They later refused to agree because “something else was also happening in this area, and this might be too much to try all at once.”

Health does have doctors and nurses working for it, as advisers and administrators. It is a crap department, agreed, devoid of talent or apparent purpose.

And it doesn’t even make policy, outside entities do that, sell them to the minister, and Health gets to set up the structure to implement the policy.

The policy for the establishment of the primary health care network, for instance, was written and lobbied-for by the Australian General Practice Network. You probably know them better now as Medicare Locals.

The Your Health website is just window dressing, isn’t it? Doesn’t actually do anything, but looks good.

The main problem with Health and Ageing wasn’t Roxon but how Jane Halton has terrorised the SES who in turn terrorise the middle management. Anyone vaguely imaginative is forced out, while those that dot the i’s, cross the t’s and never make a decision are rapidly promoted.

How do the very, very expensive matter of MOG [machinery of government] changes sit with the efficiency dividend?

DIISRTE: “deserted” (soon to be – watch out fed Labor!)

longshanks said :

MrMagoo said :

My question is with the shuffling of the deck chairs and creating of new Departments, where is the 4% dividend being saved from???? Toilet paper allowance?

I don’t think people realise just how much money departments spend on their Ministers, and MoG changes result in a huge amount of wastage and duplication of effort. I worked through two MoG changes in a large agency, in a role where I was involved in purchasing, e.g. Blackberrys for Minister and advisers; newspaper deliveries (home and office) for Minister and advisers; beautifully embossed letterhead for correspondence; home internet connection for the Minister; digital voice recorders for the Minister and advisers; magazine subscriptions (supposedly portfolio-related); etc. etc. And that’s before you start talking about office furniture and equipment, most of which is paid for by the Department of Finance.

Have a read of http://www.finance.gov.au/parliamentary-services/docs/senators_and_members_entitlements.pdf if you’re interested – and you’ll start to understand the amount of money which gets thrown out the window every time there’s a reshuffle.

Agreed. The amount of work this generates is ridiculous.

PantsMan said :

Given the Commonwealth Health Department does not employ any doctors or nurses, but rather develops ‘policy’ like Kevin Rudd’s Your Health website, I don’t think it could be a bigger waste of money. We sent a letter to Health once about technical amendments and a year later someone who spoke at about three words per minute rang us and said that they were going to think about it. They later refused to agree because “something else was also happening in this area, and this might be too much to try all at once.”

Health does have doctors and nurses working for it, as advisers and administrators. It is a crap department, agreed, devoid of talent or apparent purpose.

And it doesn’t even make policy, outside entities do that, sell them to the minister, and Health gets to set up the structure to implement the policy.

The policy for the establishment of the primary health care network, for instance, was written and lobbied-for by the Australian General Practice Network. You probably know them better now as Medicare Locals.

The Your Health website is just window dressing, isn’t it? Doesn’t actually do anything, but looks good.

I get the distinct feeling these move may be polit…. of never mind….

Good for Canberra though…. I am sure it will generate a lot of work for local businesses and even maybe some new jobs in the PS…. More opportunity for me to get a better PS job…

I’m all for a bit of change, but have to agree, this is going to cost a fortune for taxpayers. By the time the MoG’ing is finished it will all change again cos she’ll get voted out. At least some people will be happy with the payrises that are coming out of the move.
I am confused though why some areas were moved? We’ll be losing more linkages than we’ll gain.

PantsMan said :

EvanJames said :

benno1 said :

Nicola Roxon totally screwed up with Health & Aging, so lets put her in charge of the nations security instead??

How did she screw up Health and Ageing? I thought she did quite well. The department is an utter basket case but I don’t know where you’d start in fixing it. Mark Butler is very impressive too.

Given the Commonwealth Health Department does not employ any doctors or nurses, but rather develops ‘policy’ like Kevin Rudd’s Your Health website, I don’t think it could be a bigger waste of money. We sent a letter to Health once about technical amendments and a year later someone who spoke at about three words per minute rang us and said that they were going to think about it. They later refused to agree because “something else was also happening in this area, and this might be too much to try all at once.”

Ummm, no one in the defence department actually drive tanks of shoot guns.

Personally I think that Nicola has done a great job when compared to that d!ckhe@d muppet we used to have as minister, Tony Abbott.