The NSW Government has today announced the introduction of structural changes to reduce over-reliance on consultants and bring costs under control.
A new unit to be set up within the Premier’s Department to help reduce the use of consultants by redirecting agencies to in-house specialist resources where they are available and building in-house capabilities for services with the highest demand.
A new group will be responsible for identifying skills shortages and workforce gaps and undertaking long-term planning to deliver essential services across the state. This will be an expansion of the Premier’s Department’s existing role in leading industrial relations policy for the public sector.
The Premier’s Department will also be responsible for collecting and reporting data on the public sector workforce, including the People Matters survey.
This function is being transferred from the Public Service Commission to ensure it is better integrated into whole-of-government policy making.
The government will this week introduce legislation to amend the Government Sector Employment Act 2013 to sharpen the focus of the Public Service Commissioner on ethics and integrity, while transferring workforce planning and data collection functions into the Premier’s Department.
The Public Service Commissioner will continue to fulfil her important independent statutory functions to safeguard integrity in public sector recruitment and employment matters.
The Premier’s Department, jointly with The Cabinet Office, will also be tasked with leading the development of a new Core NSW Public Service Work Policy to set clear expectations of the types of work that agencies must be able to perform in-house.
The changes will continue the NSW Government’s ongoing efforts to rebuild essential services and unwind an increasing reliance on external consultants including:
- implementing tight controls and issued clear instructions to agencies around the use of external consultants
- introducing additional probity measures
- legislating ‘betrayal of trust’ fines for disclosing information gained during confidential tax discussions with the government
- redirecting more than half-a-billion dollars by reducing consultants and labour hire.
The machinery-of-government changes will place a greater focus at the heart of government on ensuring the public sector has the necessary capability and expertise in-house to deliver against the government’s key priorities.
Premier Chris Minns said:
“Today we announce commonsense changes that will ensure the public sector is delivering for NSW.
“I want to thank Commissioner Kathrina Lo and everyone at the Public Service Commission for your work to date.
“This announcement is all about leveraging your expertise to better help us solve some of the most pressing challenges that we face as a state.
“We are focused on ensuring that we rebuild in-house capability and only use external consultants when it’s actually needed.
“This overreliance on consultants has directly contributed to the budget mess we inherited.
“We were elected with a clear mandate to rebuild our essential services and repair the budget.”
Special Minister of State John Graham said:
“The Liberals’ obsession with private consultants damaged our state’s capacity to deliver essential services.
“The Liberals engaged one consultant every hour – including when it could have been done in-house for half the price.
“We are changing this approach to bring costs under control and re-build capacity in the public sector.”
Minister for Domestic Manufacturing and Government Procurement Courtney Houssos said:
“The Liberals wasted taxpayers’ money, including engaging consultants more than 10,000 times.
“This waste and mismanagement characterised the Liberals’ and Nationals’ approach to finances.
“We have begun the important work of repairing the budget, including cleaning up the waste we inherited with extravagant spending on consultants.
“This will be a budget that continues to responsibly reduce the debt left to us by the former Liberal-National government, while continuing to rebuild our essential public services.”