CED Director-General Dave Peffer says all redundancies are voluntary. Photo: Ian Bushnell.
ACT Government public servants can expect more redundancy programs as directorates look to meet shrinking budgets in light of the Territory’s parlous financial position, setting up a battle with the public service union.
The multi-service City and Environment Directorate has launched a voluntary redundancy target of 130 positions, or 3 to 5 per cent of its 4200-strong workforce.
Within hours, more than half of the target had been applied for.
Treasurer Chris Steel said on Friday that all agencies had been tasked with meeting their budgets, taking steps towards sustainability, and focusing on government priorities.
Mr Steel said the government wanted all agencies to concentrate on their spending, and each one had already been taking steps to do so.
“We said that this would be a multi-year task to make sure that, particularly expenditure on employee expenses, but also non-employee expenses, were sustainable over the medium and long-term,” he said.
“We will see agencies focused on meeting their budgets and taking steps, including the potential use of voluntary redundancies, to be able to make sure that their budgets and expenditure are sustainable over the long term.”
Mr Steel has said the rate of growth in the pubic service would slow, but this is the first time he has actually admitted that jobs would be on the line, which the Community Sector and Public Service Union said would worry its members.
CPSU ACT secretary Maddy Northam said the Barr Government must come clean with Canberrans by telling them which services they were planning to cut through this “avaricious attack” on workers.
Mr Steel said the ACT public service had grown 30 per cent since 2019 and any future growth needed to be sustainable.
But he stressed that any redundancies would be voluntary and not impact essential services.
“It’s part of a continued focus that the government has on fiscal sustainability and expenditure in the budget,” Mr Steel said.
“We announced that last year, and that work is now continuing and will be over the next two years.”
CPSU ACT secretary Maddy Northam: What services are Canberrans willing to lose? Photo: CPSU.
CED Director-General Dave Peffer said some sections of the workforce had been quarantined from redundancies, such as bus drivers and others delivering essential services.
Mr Peffer said the merging of agencies into CED had revealed duplication of work and teams, such as in planning, that would allow streamlining without affecting the processing of applications or loading up colleagues with extra work.
He said that already in the first year of the directorate, the senior executive cohort had been cut by about 40 per cent.
“Now we’re looking at the broader workforce around 3 per cent, so that should give a bit of a signal about the commitment we’ve got to frontline service delivery and meeting the expectations of our citizens in this great city,” he said.
Mr Peffer said the initial response had yielded 70 applications that would be assessed against criteria that included public safety, essential services and government priorities.
He said not everyone who applied would be accepted.
“We’re doing it in the most respectful and transparent way that we can, and investing a lot of time and effort in the teams that are left behind to ensure that they’re not picking up extra work and that they are well supported through the process,” he said.
Ms Northam said the CPSU fears directors-general may see this as a temporary solution to some budget issues; however, unions would fight it every step of the way.
“We know that they should actually be investing in the public service rather than cutting it,” she said.
“If you look at the City and Environment Directorate, we’re a growing city, so to cut city services at a time of growth seems outrageous.”
Ms Northam said remaining staff would have to pick up the extra workload and the public would suffer.
“You’re seeing it right now at Housing ACT,” she said.
“The work they do is dealing with people, so they leave behind hundreds of Housing ACT clients who have to be redistributed, and so it’s happening in one area of government already, and our members are really concerned that it will keep happening in CED and elsewhere if they choose to go down this path.”
The CPSU is already locked in a pay dispute with the government, with more protected industrial action to come.
Ms Northam said she hoped the redundancy program did not become a bargaining chip.
“I really hope that a Labor government wouldn’t do that, but we’ll have to wait and see what the government comes forward with, but it’s not just about our members, it’s about the Canberra community,” she said.
“If the government wants to have a conversation about slashing jobs out of the public service, it has to be not just a conversation with us, but a conversation with the community about what services are Canberrans willing to lose, and I’d take a bet and say Canberrans don’t want to lose anything.”
Ms Northam said the Barr Government needed to stop spending taxpayer dollars on wasteful consultants and labour hire firms and instead invest in public sector jobs.
