Page 1721 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 3 May 2011

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Title read by Clerk.

MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Health and Minister for Industrial Relations) (3.09): I move:

That this bill be agreed to in principle.

Mr Speaker, today I am tabling the Financial Management (One ACT Public Service) Amendment Bill 2011. This bill provides amendments to the Financial Management Act 1996 to facilitate the new public service model which establishes a single agency, with nine directorates, as the administrative basis of the ACT public service from 1 July 2011.

In September 2010, the government engaged an independent reviewer to evaluate the structure and capacity of the ACT public sector. The review identified that the ACT government needed to work together as one, to present one public service and one public service face, so that we can serve our customers, our citizens, in the best possible way and meet their demands.

To begin this process, all existing administrative units will be abolished by 1 July 2011 and the ACT public service will be reconfigured as a single entity, reporting to a single chief executive who will also be the head of the ACT public service.

In order to implement the single agency model, amendments are required to the FMA. The FMA is the principal financial management legislation in the territory. The objective of this legislation, as with all jurisdictions’ financial management legislation, is to promote the highest standards of financial accountability to the Legislative Assembly and the community, and to provide appropriate transparency in resource allocation and management.

This bill amends the FMA to implement the directorate structure within the single agency model by simply replacing references to “department” with “directorate”. This will provide the Legislative Assembly with the same level of detail with which to scrutinise the government’s proposed budget, on behalf of the community.

The 2011-12 Appropriation Bill has been prepared on this basis to reflect the new administrative structure which will be operational on 1 July 2011.

Another consequence of the single agency model is that chief executives of departments are being replaced with directors-general of directorates.

As financial accountability essentially remains unchanged, the bill replaces the words “chief executive” with the term “director-general”. This ensures that directors-general are held responsible for the efficient and effective operation of their respective directorates.

Part 8 of the FMA relates to the financial provisions for territory authorities. Section 54 provides a list of the ACT’s territory authorities to which part 8 applies. Rather


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