9 December 2010

The bell tolls for the ever expanding SES

| johnboy
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Bad news for all the EL2s out there.

The ABC reports that the burgeoning ranks of the public service’s Senior Executive Service are to be reviewed next year.

The Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet has flagged a review of the size and role of the senior branch of the Australian Public Service (APS) in the New Year.

Terry Moran used a business lunch in Canberra to foreshadow changes to the service including more training options and a revised set of APS values.

He says measures to improve efficiency will also be considered.

“The APSC (Australian Public Service Commission) will report to the Government in the new year on its review on the appropriate size and role of the Senior Executive Service,” he said.

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As jealous as I am of SES pay levels, cars and car parks etc, I have to say that aren’t many “9 to 5” SES. Most that I’ve seen work long hours. Actually maybe they spend their work hours trolling on RiotACT?

shadow boxer7:58 am 10 Dec 10

What i’ve seen of the SES these days is that they are just flat strap, meetings all day and email and reading most of the night.

The problem is it is now the only decion making and accountable point in the public service and they have been stripped away of support staff who can prepare briefs and filter email etc.

Is this the same review that Roger Beale began working on in June, and was due to report on this month?

And now we’re going to have yet another review, canvassing exactly the same questions?

Revising the PS values is interesting.

What will the new ones say?

“Thou shalt obey the Minister”

So I guess it will be asking too much to consider whether a 1983 ‘innovation’ was a good thing?

housebound said :

housebound said :

housebound said :

OK, here’s a memory test. I have vague memories of the SES being set up as a discrete entity back in the early 1990s. (The levels always existed, the change was the classification and their terms and conditions, and the resulting politicisation of those levels)

+1

It was the beginning of the end of the “frank and fearless” public service. It should go down in history as an act of infamy and treason.

Waiting For Godot12:09 pm 09 Dec 10

housebound said :

OK, here’s a memory test. I have vague memories of the SES being set up as a discrete entity back in the early 1990s. (The levels always existed, the change was the classification and their terms and conditions, and the resulting politicisation of those levels)

The SES was set up in 1983 by Hawke Government Minister John Dawkins as part of his public service reforms. I worked in the print room of the Dept of Finance at the time and I remember copying documents relating to the setting up of the SES. The documents featured a letterhead of a briefcase accompanied by the words Senior Executive Service.

They will just cut them and contract them back in. I recently heard of an SES person receiving a redundancy and two weeks later offered a 12 month contract to come back.

I’ll believe it when I see it. But the APS is long overdue for a big cull of the SES, who have multiplied like some sort of fungus over the last 15 years.

OK, here’s a memory test. I have vague memories of the SES being set up as a discrete entity back in the early 1990s. (The levels always existed, the change was the classification and their terms and conditions, and the resulting politicisation of those levels)

georgesgenitals11:05 am 09 Dec 10

This has been rumoured for a few months. It will be interesting to see how it actually plays out.

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