The government said yesterday it would peg wage increases for the remaining public servants at current levels, plus consumer price index increases.
Premier Colin Barnett and Treasurer Troy Buswell have been spruiking the cuts and redundancies as an opportunity for the public service to increase its flexibility and invest in efficiency measures.
“It is important that WA government agencies have the ability to run their organisations in the most efficient way, in line with contemporary management practice,” Barnett said.
“There are many reasons why the nature of a government department’s activities might alter, changing its staff requirements.
“For example, there could be changing demand for services, certain programs might end, or there could be advances in technology that see some services delivered differently or more effectively.”
Barnett said directors-general would be encouraged to target the redundancy packages to under-employed or surplus staff in “non-core areas”
The WA Department of Mines and Petroleum has told EnergyNewsPremium that it does not know exactly how many cuts it is facing at this stage, with the premier’s office saying it will ask various departments to identify who they can potentially cut before making decisions on how many will be lost from each department.
“The state government will make voluntary redundancy packages available to 1000 employees across the entire public sector,” the premier said in a statement.
“No individual agencies have been given specific targets and the decisions on whether or not to accept applications for redundancies from staff will be made by the Public Sector Commissioner upon receipt of the recommendations of the directors-general or CEOs of the agencies involved.”
However, more information is being sought, with the Environmental Protection Agency also contacted for comment.
It is unclear at this stage how cuts would affect the two agencies, which are involved in the approvals and regulation processes in the state.
APPEA declined to comment on whether potential cuts to those departments risked pushing out approval times on projects.
