Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 1:00:17 to 1:07:01
Senators question the department on SES workforce management, specifically the recruitment of new officers following several voluntary retirements.
Topics: Public service staffing
Speakers: Senator Paul Scarr, Catherine Rule, Jody Anderson, Simon Duggan, Unknown Speaker
There was. Okay. So in terms of the three team division, how many ASL within that?
Senator, we've got a property.
And how many SES?
We've got approximately 50 ASL in the division, and we have myself and three branch heads, so for SES all up.
Okay. And what's the do you have a budget? What's the remuneration cost?
Yeah, it's primarily made up of the staffing costs, but I will take it on notice if that's okay because the budget is just being finalised at the moment.
Okay. That's all right. And are any of the positions new from your perspective in terms of are there I know you've consolidated functions from across the department.
Anderson's occupying, otherwise their existing positions that have come from elsewhere in the organisation?
Okay. And sorry, I don't know this, Ms. Anderson, but you're from within the department?
Yes, Senator. I've I've been working in the city.
So you haven't advertised externally for anyone to make up these teams. They're all internal transfers, if I can put it that way.
Yes, that's correct. Senator.
Has that left gaps in any other teams that you've had to backfill?
The only gap was given Ms. Anderson was uh the only additional uh member of staff in this new construct. We needed to, of course, then Ms. Anderson came out of the workplace relations group. And so we've then had to fill Ms. Anderson's role.
Okay. And who do you fill that with?
Scott was um moved into the position that I was formerly in in the workplace relations group, and my understanding is her, she is also formally from the workplace relations group and her position is currently being filled, her former position.
Okay. Uh the October organisation chart shows a Mr. Gilliland. Is that is it I'm pronouncing correctly? As a substantive assistant secretary of both the strategic policy branch and the external budgets and parliamentary branch. Is that correct?
Gilliland is um is acting in the in the current role. Um his substantive role is in the external budgets branch, but um this is simply a process of aligning SES to various roles that reflect different priorities. It's not an additional role. Um there's somebody acting in the external budgets role behind him. So there are two different roles. Um we've got some temporary arrangements in place that we're seeking to resolve right now through some very targeted recruitment action. Um we'd expect that he doesn't. It's just a difference between the role he temporarily occupies and his substantive role.
So I just lost my train of thought there. Uh so can you just wait my son? No, that's okay. I'm sure he's lovely just like you, Senator Shaw. Can you just walk me through who's in acting roles in that regard and which positions you're recruiting for? Um can you just step me through that in terms of that area?
Sure. Um so the um strategic policy role is um has was originally established temporarily, and Mr. Gilliland was mapped to that position. So he's a he's a substantive band one officer. So he was mapped to that role from the external budgets role. Um and we have somebody acting up into the external budgets role.
We're currently in the market doing some very acting uh officers in each of those two positions.
In a sense, although um Mr. Gilliland is a substantial is a band one officer, so he's already at that level, whereas we've just got to be. Sure, but he's in a different he's acting in a different position from the one he wasn't correct?
Right. And and so you're will he go back to the previous role or it depends on the outcome of recruitment. So are you looking internally and externally?
Yes. So we're currently in um the market for um SES band one officers. So we've done an external recruitment process. That process is currently um looking at short listing. We would seek to um establish a merit list as a result of that process, and depending on the skills and experience of the candidates who come through that process, we'll match people to the roles that we've got available. So it's possible we'll move some officers around depending on what the skills and experience are that come through that recruitment process.
Okay. So can I can I just raise this high level point? And I'm I'm new to this department, but I've learned that five SES level officers accepted invitations to Uh and now you're out in the market looking for SES officers. Why couldn't those five SES officers do these jobs? Why did we have to pay them to separate? Uh and we've talked about the separation costs, and now we're out in the market looking to fill those positions.
There's a number of ways in which we manage our SES workforce. So recruitment is one, redeployment to different roles is another, um, and ITR incentives to retire is is another part of our workforce management. Um sometimes uh I don't want to I'm not going to speak obviously to the individual stances. But in general terms, um sometimes the skills uh that those people carry those the people who may have accepted an incentive to retire are not the right skills to map to a new role. So for example, um should we have somebody in ICT, they may not be well suited to transferring into a role in strategic policy.
Good answer. Anderson, um I've been impressed with your evidence. So uh presumably when you did this strategy 2026 work, you didn't need to go out and hire a crew of consultants and whatever to do the job for you.