Nahan to use razor gang
The State Government is expected to appoint a former senior Commonwealth public servant to spearhead a new razor gang that will have the job of slashing hundreds of millions of dollars - and potentially hundreds of jobs - from eight of the State's biggest spending agencies.
Impressed with the success of WA Police's Frontline First reform program, under which Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan reconfigured operations to direct more resources to public-facing functions, Treasurer Mike Nahan has ordered the directors-general of the agencies to come up with their own reform blueprints by the end of next month.
The agencies are the departments of Culture and the Arts, Agriculture, Fisheries, Parks and Wildlife, Finance, Commerce, the Attorney-General, Training and Workforce Development.
Dr Nahan said none of these currently had a reform agenda and many struggled to meet their recurrent Budget allocations.
The directors-general will be required to submit reform plans to the powerful Economic and Expenditure Review Committee, the subcommittee of Cabinet that controls spending decisions.
In early February, EERC will decide whether the reforms are up to scratch. If they are, agencies will have to roll them out for the 2015-16 Budget round.
If they are not, the razor gang will intervene to develop reform plans satisfactory to EERC. The message to agencies is effectively reform yourself or be reformed.
Dr Nahan admitted the plan could result in job cuts. Areas he identified for efficiencies included IT, procurement, office accommodation and business processes. The intention, he said, was to free resources spent on backroom functions and redirect them to public services.
"We have to do this," Dr Nahan said. "We have a real and serious budgetary threat. We're asking them to go back to each line item and ask, 'Do we need to do this'."
The Treasurer was satisfied that the departments of Health, Education and Corrective Services were in the middle of reform projects, but once the reviews of the latest eight agencies selected were completed, other agencies would be next in line.
Shadow treasurer Ben Wyatt said Dr Nahan's plan proved Mr Wyatt's criticism that the Barnett Government was "hands off" with the management of its finances.
"Six years of big spending and the Government is now bereft of ideas itself to get its finances under control," Mr Wyatt said.
