14 January 2014

Merging Social Services and Human Services

| johnboy
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The ABC brings word of a possible mega merger coming to the public service:

The Federal Government has flagged the possibility of merging the Department of Social Services with the Department of Human Services.

Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews says such a merger could create “substantial” savings.

He has indicated the move could lead to redundancies in the public service.

Ideally It would be nice to see some general doctrine on the divisions of service delivery and policy development.

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neanderthalsis1:34 pm 14 Jan 14

It would make sense for them to be integrated. At times I think that the “policy” departments like the old DEEWR and FaHCSIA never spoke to those who dealt out the dollars to the public.

While they’re at it, a few thousand of the carpet strolling dead-wood could go from being employees to clients.

HiddenDragon1:09 pm 14 Jan 14

The issues were covered in some detail in the 1976 Report of the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration (“Coombs Commission”) – section 10.3 refers:

http://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/docs/RoyalCommissionOnAustralianGovernmentAdministration_1976_reduced.pdf

If the proposal becomes reality, it will be interesting to see how they handle it, and the associated issue of devolution to State and Territory Governments from related portfolios.

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