Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee [Part 2], , 1:30:20 to 1:36:06
A review of the framework intended to reduce APS reliance on consultants and external labor hire, which the ANAO found only partly effective.
Topics: Public service staffing, Government spending
Speakers: Senator Barbara Pocock, Dr Caralee McLiesh, Christine Chalmers
>> Thank you, Chair. Um, I've got several questions around the strategic commissioning framework and your review of it. But just before I go to those, um, I notice that you've got, um, a potential audit to to assess the Department of Treasury's management and oversight of whether the objective to unlock quality affordable housing supply over the medium-term will be achieved under the National Housing Accord. Just wondering when the decision on that and whether to proceed with an or audit will will be made.
>> Uh I have not made a decision on whether to proceed. Um we uh look at potential topics quarterly and make decisions on which audits to commence uh taking into account uh risks the ability to impact and also internal considerations availability of uh of staff. Um so I'll next consider um which audits to commence in uh in December. Um but we'll continue to do so on a quarterly basis.
>> And it's your decision alone?
>> Yes, it is. Yes.
>> Okay. Thank you. >> I'll be very interested to hear where you land on that and I'm a strong enthusiast for more knowledge about what's going on in our housing system. So just put that on the record. If I can come back to to your review of the strategic commissioning framework which is the government's program to reduce the APS's reliance on the external workforce and to bring core work inhouse and strengthen the APS capability. Um the framework was supposed to reduce reliance on external labor. What were the ANO's findings in relation to how the framework measured reductions in external labor?
>> Thank you. Well, overall I hand to my colleague for for the details, but we concluded that the framework was only partly effective in uh achieving its intent and although we saw the APS-C uh effectively largely effectively supporting entities to implement um the framework and they did report that the their target was uh exceeded. Uh nonetheless um the um the uh partly effective conclusion was because the scope of the framework was very very limited and the targets could be met even while external uh workforce expenditure increased. Um so overall the target achievement hides that um but I'll ask uh Christine Char to uh to provide further detail.
>> Christine Chalmers' executive director. Um so as the auditor general was explaining uh because of the narrowness of the concepts that the framework um is based upon um namely the concept of core work >> um or um limited circumstances in which uh core work would be uh acceptably outsourced. Um in fact although there was a reduction in um expenditure on core work reported by the entities in fact um a number of the entities who reported a reduction had actually increased their expenditure on external workforce in the same period. So we looked at a sample of 22 entities, the sort of major entities making up most of the expenditure and we found that 12 of the 22 had actually increased spending on external labor um which includes labor hire contractors and consultants.
>> So it's very puzzling and contradictory, isn't it? Does that mean the framework could report success without achieving its central policy objective
Um yes that's right. Yeah.
>> What does this tell us about the effectiveness of the framework as a mechanism for reducing reliance on contractors and consultants?
>> That was the basis for our conclusion that it was only partly effective in achieving its intent.
>> Um the target APS-wide was was exceeded but the two but two entities I understand accounted for 74% of the reported reduction. Is that right?
>> That's correct. Defense. >> That's correct. Yeah.
>> So, how much confidence can the parliament have uh that this represents a systemic change in how the APS operates rather than reductions concentrated in just a very small number of agencies.
>> Uh well again that was a basis for our conclusion that um the framework was only partly effective in achieving in achieving its intent. And uh we also highlighted that um there wasn't an evaluation um for the sort of longerterm outcomes uh of reducing um uh external reliance on the external workforce and building the capacity uh capability of the uh of the APS.
>> So this is a rather poor report then missing the key overall objective of the program only a couple of agencies carrying most of the weight of the reduction. um and uh the long-term uh outcomes no real evaluations I mean by any account that is a failure of a program is it not I notice your language is very delicate um not and all objectives achieved but let's turn this into English for the average person watching most of the if you are not reducing expenditure on core objectives and external labor then you are not meeting the goals of this program is that correct
>> our language of apparently effective conclusion is a negative conclusion.
>> Okay. Thank you. The framework allowed each agency to define its own core work. Um the ANO found these definitions were inconsistent and could change from year to year. How did this undermine the ability to compare agencies and to hold them accountable?