Health to slash jobs, reduce workload to meet surplus
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The massive Commonwealth Department of Health has been forced to call for voluntary redundancies and will cut its workload in response to the government’s additional 2.5% efficiency dividend announced in MYEFO a fortnight ago. As the department dispatches its new minister briefing package to the incoming Tanya Plibersek and adjusts to having two cabinet ministers in the portfolio, controversial secretary Jane Halton issued an email to staff this morning calling for volunteers to take redundancies.
“A careful assessment of our projected budget for next year shows we now need to position ourselves by both reducing workload and workforce numbers in the second half of this year,” Halton said. She wants expressions of interest in what are called “VRs” in the bureaucracy by late January, with staff to be out the door by March. Halton insisted there would be no involuntary redundancies:
This is an acknowledgement of the often-ludicrous process of mass redundancues in 1996-97 when the Howard government came to power and eliminated thousands of public service positions. In some departments, demand for VRs was so great “tests” were administered to identify the poorest-performing officers. Invariably, however, many of the public service’s most experienced and best bureaucrats took generous packages worth tens of thousands of dollars and set up as consultants, or returned to the public service a year later. Almost certainly, Health SES will now be looking around at their staff and thinking about who best to encourage to “move down the coast” or “make a career change”. Last year the Department of Health had a departmental budget of about $600 million and employed more than 5400 staff across Australia. A 4% budget cut, if filled entirely from redundancies (which is unlikely), would see well over 100 positions go in the department, although the department will also have to find funds for length-of-service based redundancy packages. The CPSU predicted when MYEFO was released that up to 3000 jobs would be lost across the Public Service because of the additional funding cut. But in a significant admission, Halton has said that the department will need to cut back its workload to reflect fewer resources. “The department must now look at the way we deliver some core programs so we can focus effort on delivering our legislative and regulatory responsibilities and the government’s priorities including health reform,” Halton said. Deputy secretary Andrew Stuart would be undertaking a review of “workload reduction opportunities with a strong focus on ensuring they are implemented effectively in the coming year”, a process that would entail staff consultation. Halton flagged that the department’s processes for handling its massive ministerial correspondence load might be overhauled. It’s pro forma within the public service to insist that staff cuts that are not linked directly to the ending of programs can somehow be absorbed by departments while maintaining levels of service. Health is now making it clear that will not be the case — and if such a vast department can’t absorb staff cuts without reducing workload, then there will be few other areas outside Defence that can manage that either. The government left the door open for this approach when it announces the efficiency dividend, with Finance Minister Penny Wong carefully noting: ”The government’s strong expectation is that agencies will continue to meet the efficiency dividend without resorting to forced redundancies, or reduced services to regional Australia.” However, whether Health can avoid any workload reductions that don’t somehow have an impact on regional communities must be doubtful, given the wide range of its activities and funding. |
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27 Comments
Tanya Plibersek , what a joke, she will be hiding under the desk, in case the ocean rises or the workers riot. The most incompetent “Minister” after Swan.
Suzanne Blake - I gather from your other postings that you are a
Coalition supporter and that you have an insiders knowledge of the
cost of PM Parties. Just thought you should declare your interest.
@ Jenny Haines
I am certainly not a Labor supporter now, with the incompetence, corruption and li-es. Cost of PM Parties? We were discussing the NBN Christmas party as reported on Crickey yesterday where there spend”$15,000 on the bar bill alone”
I have no idea how much ly-ing Gillard spents on her parties.
I have nothing to declare, never been a member of any party, never been to a political rally, never donated a cent to any of them. I work for MYSELF in small business and I am sick of Labor li-es, waste, incompetence, corruption, criminality to name a few.
Why not sack the SERCO thugs and keep the health workers. Or, as desirably, take ASIO back to its 2001 levels.
Small business, eh SB. Hows the very business friendly tax deductions coming along then? Had any cash jobs lately. Looking forward to your reduced capital gains percentage? Perhaps you are older and looking forward to your “retirement ” tax free small business allowance.
Here we go again. Cuts in a department that is sensitive, that has a new
Minister from the Left of the Labor Party, who has to work with one of
John Howard’s bureaucrats Jane Halton, to administer and oversee a
budget reduction that will inevitably reduce levels of service. How can
it not? You can’t put staff on VRs and then expect the same level of
service. And what a combination of persons at the top. Will be inter-
esting to watch.
They said they would reform health but not like this. They should abandon the BS surplus and just get on with the job. Haven’t they learnt anything from the EU? Slashing spending to avoid political pain is counterproductive.
All this (and more?) just so Swannie can boast a surplus. The government live in fear that the comedy duo of Abbott and Hockey will be able to point the finger and accuse “No surplus! Another broken promise!” They’ll point the finger anyway so the government should not allow Abbott to dictate how to run the country.
Gillard and Co make wild promises, then live in fear of not delivering. Unfortunately, Tony Abbott has spotted their Achilles Heel. There’s an old adage about under-promising and over-delivering which Gillard & Co would be wise to make their motto.
SB the $15k NBN bill was a lie.
NBN:
Andrew Sholl, GM, communications at NBN Co, writes: Re. “Tips and rumours” (yesterday, item 6). Crikey published:
“Good to see that NBN Co hasn’t had to stint on its Christmas festivities. Crikey understands the bar tab alone at last week’s North Sydney function exceeded $15,000. In addition there were rooms booked and spit roasts to be enjoyed. Our spy estimates a total cost in excess of $20,000 — but when you’ve got over $43 billion in the kitty it’s a drop in the ocean …”
Wish I could have gone to the NBN Co Christmas party mentioned in yesterday’s Crikey. The one I attended with 600 other staff was far less glamorous.
There was no spit roast. There were no rooms booked … other than the pub itself. The bar tab was not $15,000. In fact, the evening cost less per head than the Christmas buffet at the Parramatta Leagues Club.
Excess my foot.
We are reaping what the oposition and media have been baying for - the beginning of spending cuts to bring the budget to a small surplus. Afterall according to Tony, Joe and Andrew this labor government spends like a drunken sailor. Just wait until Tony Joe and Andrew get into government. Joe estimates 12,000 job will need to be cut to bring government spending down to an acceptable level. “Ho Ho Ho a job cutting we will go,” and guess where it will be concentrated health, education and the environment. We should be careful what we wish for in a change of government. I hear from a trusted source Barnaby Joyce has purchased an abacus to learn “rithmatic” just in case there is an opposition reshuffle and he is handed the treasurers job.
A lie? Well knock me down with a feather!
More egg on S.B face, fell for the Liberal Lies AGAIN ? Time to Scroll the Troll .
I remember all too well the mass redundancies of the 90s under Howard. It was a joke- a free for all. Many of those returned, as the author highlights, to the public sector after the qualifying period either directly on the payroll or hired through labour hire agencies. Some even returned earlier using the backdoor as consultants or temps via agencies. Why does the ALP wish to follow the razor gangs down this path is a mystery.
By contrast, politicians have displayed no reluctance in accepting pay rises well above CPI while the rest of the public sector has to beg for crumbs often losing other benefits in the negotiation process.
As for corruption I don’t think the NLP can take the high moral ground with so many conflicts of interest during the Howard Government years including AWB, children overboard, conflicts around ethanol subsidies, terrorism legislation, WMDs, treatment of whistleblowers, dodgy or incompetent defence contracts just to name a handful. The Howard Government was the first to sell out to corporatism with real impact on the democratic process. To be fair this malaise is common to both sides of politics.
The problem with these sorts of VRs is that it becomes a numbers game, with little thought to need or addressing skills shortages within the health portfolio. What if 5,000 nurses want to take redundancies and are not replaced?
It won’t make a difference to the bottom line as to keep the service viable these sorts of frontline positions are essential.
Cuts are fine if they are to reduce dead wood and bogus self-fulfilling positions or excesses among the SES (grown disproportionately over the last five years) but sadly too often this is not the case.
Just once I should love to see real leadership in this instance of VR.
Ms Halton biting the bullet, perhaps?
I believe if the voluntary reduncies started at the top then the inevitable pain inflicted on regional communities would be easier to sell by the government and endured by the communities themselves, would be lessened.
SB, why exactly is Plibersek incompetent? She is my local MP and
is not only hard-working but a highly effective communicator.
I suggest you have a look at her newsletters - you absolutely do
not know what you are talking about.
And stop with this hypocritical ‘lying Gillard’ stuff - clearly lies don’t
worry you, given that you’ve been prepared to vote for
11 years of rolling coalition lies.
Your abuse is absolutely grotesque.
Just remove the $10 BILLION of fuel subsidies the Rich Miners get ? Would only take 10 minutes on a computer, then Wham bam Surplus.
or you could bring the troups back from the losing wars their fighting? makes sense though, wheres the cuts to military funding? i’m sick of this shit.
Lord Barry Bonkton for Treasurer, Douglas Jim for Finance Minister.
How bizarre that HEALTH, of all things, should be subject to cuts, in order to be all ‘hairy chested’ about Budget surplus which, in these straitened times, no government in the world would even contemplate.
What next, cut expenditure on infrastructure, education, pensions? I know that the first two are State responsibilities but, like health, they rely upon Commonwealth funding.
Priorities!
One of the great benefits of the NBN will be allow specialists surgical, medical and administrative to be stationed where they are needed hands on in the regional areas and use online facilities to provide “spare time” consulting services to metropolitan areas where hands for hands on are plentiful but consulting services can be utilised readily.
This will save enormous sums in transfer and accommodation costs as well as providing the timely emergency equal treatment needed to provide a decentralised population with services.
Ain’t science grand.
@GSGRAHAMSTEPHENS@GMAIL.COM
i used to work for a company that provided tele-radiology services linking rural hospitals to radiologists around australia and os. one of the major bottleneck was data throughput, you can imagine xrays etc. need high resolution thus large data files, multiply by many hospitals and patients that means frequent traffic jams. i also personally know researchers who are researching online/real time immersive training environments for nurses etc. this would be a dog running large scale network capacity, so yeah, in that respect nbn should go a long way to resolving/allowing things like these to happen.
@ Karen
I explained by Tanya Plibersek is an incompetent li-ar, like her leader. She came to our area mid year with the neighbouring local Labor MP and told nursing home residents that unless the carbon tax was passed, the area could be covered in sea water in the years ahead.
That is a shocking thing to do to these people, its untrue.
PS I have not voted for the LNP for 11 years. Voted for Rudd in 07 and LNP at last election. Voted to get rid of Keating in mid 90’s.
Suzanne - what type of small business are you in? Anything to do with
telecommunications?
So Suzie you think there are NO LIERS in the LNP? .
I would suggest the slimey lying( ‘never ever GST for starters!”) Howard was king lier of a very big group inc Reith,Abbott,Robb,Ruddock etc etc in the party you voted for.!
Suzanne’s small business is not very busy as she is first to comment on every article, or is her business trolling for the Lie-beral Party and the COALitoin
The real beauty of the voluntary or ‘hands up for a package’ approach - at least for management - is that it usually avoids or at least minimizes any threat to senior jobs. Getting rid of a redundant function, on the other hand, would normally involve a vertical slice of the organisation - a division or a branch - becoming surplus, thus threatening the jobs of SES division and branch heads as well as those of ordinary grunts. ‘Hands up’ is much safer.
@ Jenny Haines
No