Jim Chalmers met Treasury graduates in March. But when he delivers the Budget in May, the news won’t be as positive for established APS staff. Photo: Jim Chalmers Facebook.
Anthony Albanese isn’t giving much (anything) away when it comes to what Australians might expect to find in next month’s federal budget, but it’s a sure thing the Australian Public Service can count on across-the-board cuts.
The Prime Minister won’t be delivering the bad news on the second Tuesday in May (his Treasurer Jim Chalmers will), but everyone can see it coming.
Agencies have already been ordered to find 5 per cent efficiencies in their annual budgets, and they will all soon find out what that actually means for the resources they will be left with to carry out their functions.
Doing more with less might be the APS’s new mantra (new-old mantra, that is).
There are currently dozens of government agencies in the process of hiring freezes and offering voluntary redundancies in the hope of being able to “align” staffing levels with current and anticipated funding.
Big departments like Education; Heath; Home Affairs; Infrastructure; and Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water all have processes in place.
The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Australian Bureau of Statistics are also offering redundancies, as is the National Indigenous Australians Agency, the Fair Work Ombudsman and a host of smaller and medium-sized agencies.
And let’s not forget the ongoing, very public bloodletting at the CSIRO.
Some agencies are quite open about it, while others hope it can all be done quietly with a ‘business-as-usual’ veneer.
But here’s the thing – they are mostly targeted redundancies, in areas deemed no longer priorities.
That sends a very clear signal that the public service is undergoing a metamorphosis and is likely to be a somewhat different animal post-budget than it is now.
There is also a vigorous but ‘normal’ shifting of people and resources between agencies taking place, which backs up the message that the Federal Government is on a mission to save money and to home in on services it deems vital while also engaging a ‘surplus to requirements’ agenda across the sector.
But you can’t shift resources between agencies with any degree of success during times of crisis if the nation has a bare bones public sector.
On the flip side of that, of course, is that you can’t significantly boost public service numbers, as Labor has done since coming to office, without seriously increasing the future liability for any government to reduce those numbers when priorities change.
Turns out that ‘future liability’ – paying redundancies – is now and Labor actually increased it for itself.
“Yes, they are targeted cuts, and we will feel them,” one senior APS officer told Region.
“The budget is not in the best of shape, and these kinds of efficiencies are to be expected.”
Another said the APS has been made “very aware” that it is going to be a “tight budget”.
In the current global upheaval affecting Australians at the bowser, there will hopefully be some relief in the budget by way of further reduced excises, etc.
But these will come at the expense of other government services and APS jobs.
The PM is asked every day about what help Australians might expect to see in the budget.
He has a stock answer at the ready.
“Well, the budget is now less than a month away, I think, in terms of dates, and we’ll work through the government’s budget processes,” he said on Monday (13 April).
“They’ll continue today, they’ll continue next week. Obviously, the uncertainty that’s there – this is having a massive global impact.
“This is the biggest spike in fuel prices that the world has ever seen. This obviously has implications, and the government is dealing with that.
“And one of the things that it will mean is that the budget is likely to be settled later than usual.”
Yes, public servants are working around the clock on the budget and on measures to help get Australians through the current crisis.
They’ll do a good job as they usually do, but once the federal budget is delivered next month, some of them might find they’re out of a job – the specific roles they play – and they’re no longer priority number one for the government.
Australians will feel the impacts of the federal budget next month, there is no doubt.
Australian Public Service agencies might feel an additional impact, which, of course, will be most acutely felt by their workforces.
Original Article published by Chris Johnson on Region Canberra.
