Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 1:07:01 to 1:11:02
The department details how Strategy 2026 informed internal budget allocations and the reprioritization of resources toward high-priority government areas.
Topics: Government spending, Efficiency dividend
Speakers: Senator Paul Scarr, Simon Duggan, Jody Anderson, Unknown Speaker, Senator Marielle Smith
Thank you, Senator. No, we we did it in-house.
You did it all in-house?
We we did, yes.
Oh, congratulations, well done. Um I I mean that because I you know you're of the department, so to the extent you've got that capacity to do it within the department as opposed to going out paying consultants for their precedence. That's that's good. So in terms of the cost, it was only a very small handful. Uh I'm not sure you could have used any more adjectives, Secretary, to emphasize how small the team was. Very small handful. Uh what was the cost of that? Can you give us a uh an estimate as the cost of that?
Senator, I think.
Process the strategy 2026?
I I think we'd have to take it on notice and to are you talking about the staff? Like what's the process?
Well, it's just the staff, isn't it? It's just the staff.
I think I would have to take that on notice. Thanks.
Uh and and as I understand your uh your evidence are essentially seconded from what they're doing to the other. If you've got anything else you can add there, but I'm relieved we didn't have to pay consultants or contractors. Uh in June you said this work would inform internal budgets. Which programs or areas uh were reprioritised or reduced as a result of the of the work? Can you give us any granularity on that?
Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Senator. I so it allowed us to do to do two things. One was to identify where uh there was an emerging priority that required additional resourcing. So we did use it as an opportunity to give people and we did this through you know looking at where our skill sets matched our emerging needs, and so we moved people into high priority areas. At the same time as uh talking within each of the the groups about where there are opportunities to effectively deprioritize work. A lot of that, a lot of that deprioritization occurred you know at a fairly uh micro level. So we managed to identify a lot of efficiencies and things that we could either stop or in most instances um put a longer time horizon out of, which meant that we required less resourcing initially, but would require you know resourcing at some point in the future. So it was a big um big exercise to do that right across the department. Um, through those through those transfers, as I said, I think we were in a position then to be able to re-baseline staff. I mean, one point I'd make, Senator, is this this work is continuous. It's it's not that we did one exercise of reprioritization and then we were set. This is a constant conversation, our executive board about how we continue to realign with government priorities and the department's broader accountabilities. So there's no kind of point in time. Kind of point at which I'd say that work is is complete and that work is finished.
Okay, excellent. Do you have anything you can you can table, take it on notice in terms of the 2026-27 internal budget allocations per group compared to 2025-26?
Yes, Senator, we we will have all that detail. I'm happy to take that on notice and take it.
If you could in terms of the work, Ms. Anderson, that you're doing in terms of strategic focus. Does this does that include any issues in relation to workload workplace relations policy? For example, the Fair Work Court or the Secure Jobs Framework?
Senator, no, it it doesn't. It doesn't really take on policy responsibility from existing areas such as workplace relations, so in short, no, it doesn't. It's more cross-cutting issues.
All right. Okay.
Senator, just a nudge were due to move to the next outcome in about six minutes.