Governing the City State - Chief Minister and Treasury Directorate ...

through ACT Government reporting processes, and through the annual reporting cycle to theAssembly. More effective use of this information could be made through the establishmentand resourcing of a dedicated central capacity in the proposed Chief Minister’s Department toanalyse what the data means and how it relates to achievement of government priorities. Thisarea would provide valuable input to the rationalisation of reporting requirements across theService.The Government will also need to consider providing additional resourcing to the ACTPScentre to support its policy making and decision making processes. New functions cannot beperformed properly without either new funding or explicit decisions about what will nolonger be done, or what will be done at a lower quantity or quality. While these principlesapply to all Directorates – and are front and centre in any discussion of efficiency dividendproposals – the Review notes that the current central agencies while adequately resourced,might find it difficult to accommodate additional unfunded workloads without placingunreasonable demands on staff or creating unacceptable risk of error or failure.UnionsACT argued in its Submission to the Review that:The ACT Government Office of Industrial Relations provides a very limited service to theACT community compared to a number of its state counterparts. It provides no advice line tothe public, does not undertake industrial advocacy on behalf of the ACT Government withFair Work Australia and is ill equipped to respond to all the requests resulting from theCOAG processes dealing with Occupational Health & Safety, Workers Compensation, SkillsAustralia and other processes expected by the Federal Government. This situation cannotcontinue if the ACT Public sector is to be taken seriously by its state counterparts or by itsinteractions with the Federal Government. 180Intergovernmental RelationsMuch of the role of the proposed Chief Minister’s Department will still be related tointergovernmental processes. In this context, there will continue to be strategic and tacticaldecisions to be made about the degree of engagement the ACT should have in differentprocesses. Clearly, the ACTPS would put far more effort into health reform than it would aprocess about regulation of mining, but across the COAG agenda, a consistent approach toaligning effort in the intergovernmental space with ACT Government priorities will continueto be required. The ACT Government cannot, and should not, vacate its seat at theintergovernmental table as it offers the opportunity to draw on the capacity and capability oflarger counterparts, but also to ensure the interests of the ACT and the citizenry of Canberraare recognised and protected. Given relative size, however, there is a clear need to continueto focus effort where the greatest benefits are to be had, and to confine engagement in otherprocesses to an appropriate level of complexity and effort.Alignment of internal and external reporting streams is discussed in Chapter 5.180 Submission No.3 .Administrative Arrangements Changes: 122