Better Public Services Advisory Group Report - November 2011

Continuous improvement and innovation initiatives
• Benefits in excess of $500 million over five years could be achieved through applying
programme and project management practices to capital projects, given that
departments and Crown entities are expecting to spend over $24 billion on such
projects over the next five years.
• Estimated savings of around $1 billion over five years are possible through all
departments lifting the performance of their back-office functions. Greater savings
would be possible if the lessons from the benchmarking exercise were applied across
all Crown entities.
• Significant additional savings would be achieved if the continuous improvement and
innovation practices were applied across all the activities of departments and Crown
entities. For example, even a 1% year-on-year saving could produce savings to the
Crown in the order of $4.5 billion over five-years once the initiatives were fully
implemented.
Consolidation of agencies and functions
• While the Advisory Group suggests that the primary focus of restructuring should be to
align structures with results and enhance capability, the potential exists for savings as
evidenced by the consolidation of procurement activities which is expected to realise
savings in excess of $500 million over five years.
• Further potential savings in the order of $100 million over five years may be possible
through consolidating / reprioritising policy advice 44 .
44 Refer footnote 39 above; this includes potential efficiency savings, savings through targeted baseline reviews and
policy consolidation.
45