The Financial Review has the very bad news for the public service here in Canberra that a newer and bigger efficiency dividend is going to be imposed:
Cabinet ministers have been told the expenditure review committee of cabinet will impose a further “efficiency dividend” on the federal bureaucracy, in addition to the on-going 1.5 per cent dividend and an additional, one-off 2.5 percentage-point boost dividend imposed last November. That took the dividend – in effect, enforced spending cuts – in 2012-13 to 4 per cent.
However, the government is apparently looking for another name for the across-the-board cut to the federal bureaucracy, which is already enduring a reduction in staffing numbers by 4200 over a two-year period.
Individual departments are being told how many positions they will have to shed as part of the savings measure. It comes as the mid-year review of the budget once again is turned into a mini-budget to rein in costs to offset spending blowouts and revenue shortfalls to keep the surplus forecast this financial year on track.