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

Unions ACT noted in its Submission to the Review, for example, thatInTACT and the Payroll systems employed by the ACT Government are both outdated andoften incompatible with other software used by departments. Shared Services are often unableto provide employees with accurate records of leave owing, long service records or otherleave information. This is particularly evident when people become redundant or resign fromthe service. We know of cases where employees have had to provide their own evidence orrecords in determining their entitlements! This is very poor for a modern service trying tooperate in a competitive labour market and affects the reputation of the ACT Public Sector. Insome cases union members require our advocacy to obtain their entitlements and in somecases just their pay for the fortnight! 191The CPSU similarly argued:A recent example of deficient reporting of an ACT Government policy objective was theACTPS recruitment freeze. Despite repeated CPSU requests for information on the impact thefreeze was having on agencies, CMD were unable to provide any definitive data. Ofsignificant concern to the CPSU was the fact that no agency played a central monitoring roleof this service-wide initiative. We have no reason to believe that the ACT Government hasany information on the impact of the freeze on the ACTPS.In regard to performance and accountability mechanisms, the ACTPS Commissioner forPublic Administration’s workforce Profile report and Agency Survey features significantlyless information than the comparable Australian Public Service Commission’s (APSC) annualState of the Service Report …It should be noted that the Commission for Public Administration provides a gender analysisof the Workforce Profile and identifies gender pay gaps by classification and occupation inthe ACTPS. The CPSU views this very positively and believes this should be adopted by theAPSC. 192The Governance of Shared Services has become intertwined within TAMS structures,including in relation to funding, which has diminished Shared Services’ focus on whole ofgovernment delivery, and the capacity of the Shared Services Governing Committee tofunction, as it should, as its Board of Directors. In returning to the centre of government,Shared Services should retain the level of funding which it took to TAMS in 2008 (subject toindexation and government decisions). To the extent that this function has been used tooffset other cost pressures in TAMS, those separate funding pressures should be consideredseparately on their merits.Shared Services should, once separated, continue to function as a discrete component of theFinance Directorate, permitting the Board of Directors to oversee management of thebusiness unit as a separate entity.191 Submission No.3.192 Submission No.11.Administrative Arrangements Changes: 134