Page 2363 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 29 August 2007
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saved due to this supposed “efficiency” and how much has been saved from other measures, such as possibly cutting a few corners.
While some of the savings reported to have been made by the Shared Services Centre apparently may have been due to economies of scale—and that makes sense—some of these savings were also the result of other measures, including less frequent replacement of capital assets. In the estimates committee hearings on 26 June, the head of the Shared Services Centre, Mr Vanderheide, explained that some savings would be made by replacing computer hardware every four years instead of every three years. What difference was made by putting it all under one umbrella rather than each agency making the decision is beyond me. Anyone in a business can do that—let things run down a bit further or get a little more out of date. If that is a significant consideration in the way in which savings will be achieved, I think we ought to be a little uneasy.
This may be a sensible savings measure, and I am not saying that it is not appropriate if it is cost effective, although I must say that with computers a four-year life cycle is quite amazing. I am not sure I have ever seen things being run out that far. I had lunch with my old bookkeeper on the weekend, and I think she keeps her computers for that period of time. It is not what you would usually expect in a cutting-edge organisation. So we will watch with interest to see how that policy plays out. I am not one to criticise measures that reduce costs and, if that is the case, well done.
The budget, however, does not seem to allow us to determine what savings are made due to economies of scale and consolidation and what savings are due to these other methods. This will make it quite difficult to assess the real impact of the Shared Services Centre on the budget bottom line, and that is one of my concerns. If you look through the budget papers for each of the various departments, you will see a great many technical adjustments in the appropriations for these departments, each increasing the required appropriation due to a Shared Services Centre adjustment.
On page 3 of Budget Paper No 4, we see that there is a Shared Services Centre technical adjustment to the Chief Minister’s Department for an additional appropriation of $123,000 in this year and the forward years. On page 73, we see that there is a Shared Services Centre technical adjustment to the Department of Treasury for an additional appropriation of $510,000 in this year and the forward years. On page 175, similarly, there is an adjustment of $2.406 million to ACT Health. On page 209, there is $1.595 million in relation to the Department of Disability, Housing and Community Services. On page 250, there is an adjustment to JACS of $1.9 million. On page 300 there is an adjustment to TAMS of $2.559 million. On page 373 there is a technical adjustment to the Department of Education and Training of $1.722 million. On page 403, there is a Shared Services Centre technical adjustment to ACTPLA for an additional appropriation of $653,000 in this year and the forward years.
This amounts to technical adjustments of about $11.486 million in additional appropriations for these departments. This pattern continues on and on for each of the territory authorities and corporations. We see, therefore, that the government has been forced to adjust its estimates of the savings for the Shared Services Centre. We are assured, however, that the high level of future savings will nonetheless be achieved.
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