OT: Current Affairs and Politics

[Bandwagon]

If you delve more into this article, you get a bit more of a picture of what was really going on.

70% of the money was spent on labour hire, which is essentially just outsourced payroll. To get a true reflection of whether what was actually spent was actually more than reality, you need to compare the costs if those people who were engaged through labour hire would have been engaged on the APS books instead.

So the important thing regards that is .........

In 2015, the-then Coalition government made a decision to keep public sector staffing levels at the approximate equivalent of 2006-2007 levels, the equivalent of 167,596 staff, excluding the military.

In 2021, the Community and Public Sector Union told a senate inquiry into the capability of the public service that labour hire and external contracting was used for day-to-day public service work due to government policies meaning agencies were unable to directly employ staff.

..............which effectively means regardless of the costs either way, labour hire has to be used to make up the shortfall. Traditionally you would use labour hire for surge capacity, where regardless of the fact you're paying a margin it works out cheaper as you're utilising labour more efficiently.

But at that level, that's not what's happening here, the only way it can be cheaper is if the wages and conditions are lower than the full time employee who would otherwise be doing that job. In which case you've got the government using labour hire to erode pay and conditions for your average pleb who'd otherwise be working for the public service.

There really is no good look in any of that for the government, it's either political, contracts for mates, or a bit of both.

 

[Gronk]

If you delve more into this article, you get a bit more of a picture of what was really going on.

70% of the money was spent on labour hire, which is essentially just outsourced payroll. To get a true reflection of whether what was actually spent was actually more than reality, you need to compare the costs if those people who were engaged through labour hire would have been engaged on the APS books instead.

True. But what if, hypothetically, much of the outsourcing went to, say Chipmunk & Co without following a proper tender process. And what if Chipmunk & Co just happen to be a major LNP donor…

 

[Bandwagon]

True. But what if, hypothetically, much of the outsourcing went to, say Chipmunk & Co without following a proper tender process. And what if Chipmunk & Co just happen to be a major LNP donor…

.....or a member of the minister for general rorting's family.

 

[Chipmunk]

Working in this field directly, I can you tell you the Government is so far removed from the awarding of labour hire contracts in the APS I doubt they'd really have any clue who was getting the money if it wasnt reported. The decision is essentially up to lower-middle management within the APS, and they use multiple providers, as they don't really care who gets the contract. In the vast majority of cases, one person is one contract, so you might be paying 5 labour hire agencies to employ 10 different people, all on a different hourly rate, under a different contract.

The labour hire recruitment agencies get paid whether they employ the staff or the Government employs the staff, so in the main they couldn't give a shit.

 

[Bandwagon]

Working in this field directly, I can you tell you the Government is so far removed from the awarding of labour hire contracts in the APS I doubt they'd really have any clue who was getting the money if it wasnt reported. The decision is essentially up to lower-middle management within the APS, and they use multiple providers, as they don't really care who gets the contract. In the vast majority of cases, one person is one contract, so you might be paying 5 labour hire agencies to employ 10 different people, all on a different hourly rate, under a different contract.

The labour hire recruitment agencies get paid whether they employ the staff or the Government employs the staff, so in the main they couldn't give a shit.

Surely management choose from a list of approved or accredited providers, they wouldn't just open up the yellow pages.

So individual contracts yeah, but who gets on whatever list is gonna be a different process altogether.

 

[Bandwagon]

The labour hire recruitment agencies get paid whether they employ the staff or the Government employs the staff, so in the main they couldn't give a shit.

So this is obviously a separate contract to that of contracting individuals to fill positions?

 

[Chipmunk]

Surely management choose from a list of approved or accredited providers, they wouldn't just open up the yellow pages.

So individual contracts yeah, but who gets on whatever list is gonna be a different process altogether.

The Department of Finance sends out an approach to market (essentiallly a tender) from time to time to ask agencies if you want to be on a panel for labour hire recruitment (Or an individual agency does it and then Department of Finance just says, OK, we'll use that for the entire APS). You apply to be on the panel, there could be 200 companies on the panel (I.e the list). middle management public servants decide who is on the panel based on whatever criteria and what you say in your application. Realistically, if youre a solvent company, youll get on the panel. I doubt they even tell the Government about the panel, as its an administrative internal funcion in the APS.

It's then up to individual areas (lower level management generally) to pick whatever company they want to go to to find a labour hire contractor. They're likely to use 4-5 who they prefer to get labour hire contractors from.

 

[hindy111]

We need to say well done to the liberal for all the new metro and light rails. Lets watch these projects get neglected now as they focus on electric cars

 

[Chipmunk]

So this is obviously a separate contract to that of contracting individuals to fill positions?

It's essentially the same panel arrangement. I think it's called the Recruitment Services Panel, they're all the same companies, it's up to the Department whether they're on the Governments books or the labour hire company books.

The labour hire company doesn't really have people that are labour hire staff that just work for them. It's not traditional labour hire in the industrial sense. Most APS labour hire staff are registered with 20 agencies and work for whoever gets them the gig. In many instances the Department may re-employ someone they already know, and they contact them directly and may either ask them what labour hire company they want to work for or might tell them which labour hire company they will work for. All the labour hire companies are in an APS context is a middle man who does the payroll for individuals. It's essentially just outsourced payroll.

 

[Chipmunk]

Here we go, here is the Recruitment Services current panel. I was wrong about the number on it, there is only 35 these days, there use to be heaps more on the other panels.

Standing Offer Notice View - SON3557594: AusTender

AusTender provides centralised publication of Australian Government business opportunities, annual procurement plans and contracts awarded.

www.tenders.gov.au

 

[strider]

Here we go, here is the Recruitment Services current panel. I was wrong about the number on it, there is only 35 these days, there use to be heaps more on the other panels.

Standing Offer Notice View - SON3557594: AusTender

AusTender provides centralised publication of Australian Government business opportunities, annual procurement plans and contracts awarded.

www.tenders.gov.au

FFS shutup .... this is the hang shit on the govt thread. Theres no place for explanations.

 

[Bandwagon]

It's essentially the same panel arrangement. I think it's called the Recruitment Services Panel, they're all the same companies, it's up to the Department whether they're on the Governments books or the labour hire company books.

The labour hire company doesn't really have people that are labour hire staff that just work for them. It's not traditional labour hire in the industrial sense. Most APS labour hire staff are registered with 20 agencies and work for whoever gets them the gig. In many instances the Department may re-employ someone they already know, and they contact them directly and may either ask them what labour hire company they want to work for or might tell them which labour hire company they will work for. All the labour hire companies are in an APS context is a middle man who does the payroll for individuals. It's essentially just outsourced payroll.

+ margin , and obviously a shit ton of HR functions / costs.

So if you're getting folks employed basically by whatever department but through a labour hire company as per your previous post, you've literally got the same guy doing the same job ( so there is no productivity gain ) at best that achieves more paper shuffling ( in total 'cause you're now having another entity shuffling paper ) at worst you're just funneling taxpayer money into the private sector for the sake of appearing to be controlling the costs of the public service in certain budget lines for little more than political / ideological reasons.

In the end spending more taxpayer dollars than you otherwise would have done.

Sounds legit awesome.

 

[Bandwagon]

Here we go, here is the Recruitment Services current panel. I was wrong about the number on it, there is only 35 these days, there use to be heaps more on the other panels.

Standing Offer Notice View - SON3557594: AusTender

AusTender provides centralised publication of Australian Government business opportunities, annual procurement plans and contracts awarded.

www.tenders.gov.au

Given the details there, that would only be for the dept of Health?

So I'd assume from that each dept would have its own panel and list of providers.

 

[Bandwagon]

FFS shutup .... this is the hang shit on the govt thread. Theres no place for explanations.

Well, you could assert that, but then that seems a little dumb.

 

[strider]

My firat job out of uni i worked for then Sydney Electricity, which was transitioning out of govt.
They were still in the process of making it look an appealing privatisation option, so cut a shitload of staff to get the wages off the books.
Only alot of those staff were very specialised long time employees.
They got very good redundancies, then got contracted back at about 3x what their salaries were.
But hey, they werent on the books anymore.

 

[Bandwagon]

My firat job out of uni i worked for then Sydney Electricity, which was transitioning out of govt.
They were still in the process of making it look an appealing privatisation option, so cut a shitload of staff to get the wages off the books.
Only alot of those staff were very specialised long time employees.
They got very good redundancies, then got contracted back at about 3x what their salaries were.
But hey, they werent on the books anymore.

Of all things, I think privatisation of electricity supply has been the biggest of the sell off failures.

None of the promised benefits, and a shit ton of profit going to the private sector.

 

[Incorrect]

My firat job out of uni i worked for then Sydney Electricity, which was transitioning out of govt.
They were still in the process of making it look an appealing privatisation option, so cut a shitload of staff to get the wages off the books.
Only alot of those staff were very specialised long time employees.
They got very good redundancies, then got contracted back at about 3x what their salaries were.
But hey, they werent on the books anymore.

Yep, heard very similar stories out of other Govt agencies. People winning the Lotto twice in a effect!

Also heard the same about Fairfax printers back in the early 2000's... A few got made redundant in big payouts only to come back not long after as highly paid contracts...

 

[Chipmunk]

Given the details there, that would only be for the dept of Health?

So I'd assume from that each dept would have its own panel and list of providers.

No, so as I said in the earlier post, the Department of Finance (the central agency in charge of public service administration) will advertise for a panel, or an agency will advertise (in this case Digital Health Agency) for a panel, and then the Department of Finance just says thanks for that, this can be the panel that every Department now has to use, which is what they have done in this instance.

I believe Finance advertised recently for a new labour hire panel, as this one expires in November.

 

[Chipmunk]

+ margin , and obviously a shit ton of HR functions / costs.

So if you're getting folks employed basically by whatever department but through a labour hire company as per your previous post, you've literally got the same guy doing the same job ( so there is no productivity gain ) at best that achieves more paper shuffling ( in total 'cause you're now having another entity shuffling paper ) at worst you're just funneling taxpayer money into the private sector for the sake of appearing to be controlling the costs of the public service in certain budget lines for little more than political / ideological reasons.

In the end spending more taxpayer dollars than you otherwise would have done.

Sounds legit awesome.

Essentially labour hire use under the previous government was all ideological reasons, in the same way to have them now employed temporarily on the Governments books (or non-ongoing as is the technical term) for the current Government is also ideological purposes.

I'm not sure either way costs more or less overall though. I suspect it give or take costs about the same overall.

 

[Bandwagon]

Essentially labour hire use under the previous government was all ideological reasons, in the same way to have them now employed temporarily on the Governments books (or non-ongoing as is the technical term) for the current Government is also ideological purposes.

I'm not sure either way costs more or less overall though. I suspect it give or take costs about the same overall.

TBH I just can't see how all else being pretty much the same, how adding a profit margin for shareholders ends up at around the same cost.

Not to mention you have now added whatever costs are involved in managing that system from the government's side.