Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee [Part 2], , 1:36:06 to 1:41:37
Discussion on inconsistent definitions of core work across agencies and the lack of incentives to bring work back in-house.
Topics: Public service staffing, Workplace relations
Speakers: Christine Chalmers, Senator Barbara Pocock, Dr Caralee McLiesh, Speaker 5, Unknown Speaker
>> Um so there were two types of core work. One of them was the APS-wide core work that was defined by the Australian Public Service Commission. Um, and that was based on five of 18 uh job families or classifications of types of work. Um, the other type of core work was defined by each entity individually. Um what we did find in the audit was that um there was there was clearly a lot of inconsistency between entities in terms of what had been defined as as core work under that second concept. Um which is um consistent with the intent of flexibility around a certain amount of flexibility around implementation of the framework. Um however we also did find that even within the same entity between one year and another um there was um um a pattern of um entities changing uh what they defined as core work which we
changes within the same entity and a lot of changes differences between entities on the definition of core work. So, how could the ANO establish whether these agencies had genuinely reduced outsourcing or had they been simply changing the definition of core work?
>> Well, the the definition of core work was changed to some extent um not entirely um but we did see some some changes um >> for most entities. Yeah. What minimum
requirements would be needed to ensure that an agency could not simply redefine work as noncore to avoid reducing its appearance of relying on external labor?
Um well the APS definition of uh sorry the APSC definition of core work um had that definition been applied consistency consistently to all entities um then it would have been um uh more feasible I guess to to understand uh what the
actual outcome was and between those two forms of defining core work where was the balance of the core work. Was it mostly within the APS-C definition or in the other self-defining and changing
>> Uh, it was I I I don't think the audit really went to that that balance. I I would say that across the 18 job families in which an entity could potentially classify the work as core, um, we saw representation across all 18 job families.
Um did you find that the agencies had sufficient incentives to bring work inhouse? Clearly that's the goal of this policy when doing so required investment in recruitment, training and permanent staffing compared with continuing to procure external services. Is the
I think we we actually stated in the in the audit report that there was an incentive um for the opposite to occur in the sense that because there was flexibility around um concepts such as core work and limited circumstances in which core work was accept uh uh outsourcing core work was acceptable and because the framework did impose quite a significant reporting burden on entities which we heard about quite a bit in terms of submissions to the audit. um there was an incentive to reclassify work as as non-core.
>> Minister, if I can come to you, I'm sorry. I know you're doing something else there, but it's a it's a clear strong goal of your government to reduce external contracting. The last year of the Morrison government was $20 billion external payment as I remember and I think we are back at $20 billion now. Why does the Commonwealth still lack and this ANAO report it makes it clear it lacks consistent comparable reporting on the use of consultants, contractors and labor hire across the service? What why why do you still lack a tool to actually get a grip on this and reduce it?
>> I'd probably want to refer that question to the relevant policy agency which I assume is either finance or APSC. >> APSC. >> APSC.
>> Okay. I'll come back to that with the Minister for Finance.
>> Um, APSC is have they appeared
>> tomorrow?
>> Tomorrow. Yeah. Sorry. Well, there you go. You've got the opportunity to take
it up. Don't worry. >> Does the current devolved approach to financial reporting um give us this kind of sufficient visibility for the government to manage this external workforce use across the APS as a whole? What's your opinion about the devolvement the local definitions of core work and so on?
>> One of the recommendations we made in the audit was about getting more consistency in uh data related to uh use of the external workforce. uh it's not com uncommon for uh requests for that data to be uh uh produced and currently it relies on um individual agencies interpreting requests uh in potentially different ways. So one of our recommendations did relate to getting more consistency across government.