Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 16:32 to 19:02
Discussion on the 5% increase in departmental expenses and the department's failure to meet several performance measures over the last year.
Topics: Government spending, Education
Speakers: Senator Matt O'Sullivan, Mr. Craig Boyd, Mr. Marcus Markovic, Mr. Tony Cook
>> Thank you very much chair and thank you secretary. Thank you secretary also for those remarks in relation to Dr. Helen Haines. Uh, can I ask about the departmental expenses? I see they rose from 416 million and 2425 to 437.9 million in 2526. An increase of approximately 5% which as we know is above inflation. So what's driving that increase in spending?
>> Um, thanks Senator. I might get uh my coup to help me with that. Mr. Markovic.
So Marcus Markovic, deputy secretary, corporate and enabling services. Uh our chief financial officer, Craig Boyd, has joined us at the table. I'll just let him get ready, but in part the increase in expenditure has been due to new measures that were provided throughout the year. I think last time at estimates, we gave you a table of some measures. So we've had two things happening. We've had some measures coming on and some going off. um the major measures and again I think we spoke last time around some of the child safety uh measures where the department was given additional resourcing and in line with that additional resourcing we've had additional expenditure so uh that's that's the primary reason but I might just see if the CFO has anything he would like
>> so you said that's the main what of of that have you got a breakdown of what that would how much for that particular measure uh as a percentage maybe
>> the Craig Boyd first assistant secretary financial management division. Um Senator, was that 202425 into 2026? Sorry.
>> Yeah, I'm comparing 2425 to 2526.
>> Yep. Um the largest component was there was a measure in relation to safety and quality in early child care settings. It was uh provided for the department 86 and a half ASL. uh it brought in additional funding across the forwards of about $80 million. Um within the year the staffing that staffing increase alone was uh about 12.5 million 12.3 if memory serves. So that that is that increase in revenue across the um those financial years.
>> So you've got 27 performance measures and I understand that six of them were not met uh and two of which don't have accessessible results. Does that mean that in the last year it hasn't met roughly you haven't met roughly a quarter of the uh of of your targets? Does that concern you? Secretary