25/3/04
Three of the Government's proposed new shared services centres will be located in suburban Cannington, as a key step in a move to save taxpayers more than $50million annually.
Minister assisting the Minister for Public Sector Management John Kobelke said the establishment of Shared Service Centres would allow more funding to be redirected to the priority areas of Health, Education and Law and Order.
"Under the Gallop Government, the number of Government departments has been reduced from 46 to 21 and the new shared services centres will provide significant new efficiencies," Mr Kobelke said.
The Minister said the decision meant that up to 900 public servants would be relocated to the former Australian Taxation Office in Cannington.
"Planning can now commence on setting up the building to suit functional requirements and to provide a work friendly environment ready for staff, who will start moving into the building early next year," he said.
"The quality of public services is dependent on the capability and commitment of staff.
"The Gallop Government wants to attract and retain good staff and to this end, some of the savings are to be re-invested in the people working in the new shared services centres.
"Specific strategies will be developed as implementation proceeds and the staff will be consulted to ensure their priorities are taken into account in this process and we will be looking to world's best practice for ideas."
Mr Kobelke said that could mean making improvements to the work environment or to training and development, or considering staff in other ways.
"In the case of Cannington it will be very important to ensure the security of people at the building by installing a controlled entry system, as well as securing the free staff car park," he said.
"As a former Australian Taxation Office facility, the Cannington offices were built to extremely high specifications, required by the Commonwealth in consultation with public sector unions, and it is also close to good public transport.
"We will be consulting with the Civil Service Association, to ensure that Cannington will provide an attractive location for the public servants who work there."
The Minister said the Gallop Government's creation of shared services centres provided a significant change in the management of the public service.
"Day-to-day corporate support functions of human resources and payroll, finance and the information technology to support these functions, will be aggregated into five centres," he said.
Corporate Services personnel presently located within individual agencies are to be relocated to one of the five shared service centres and all Government agencies have been grouped into clusters, each supported by a particular shared service centre.
Two of the centres will provide services to the Education and Training and Health sectors respectively, while the remaining centres will service other agency clusters and those three service centres are to be collocated in Cannington.
Mr Kobelke said planning was already under way to develop strategies to implement the changes and to ensure the transition for staff is as smooth as possible.
"Collocating the shared service centres in the one building will allow even greater sharing of resources and expertise and reduce duplication of business system requirements," he said.
"Importantly, this initiative will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government administration and delivery of services to Western Australians and save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars."
The Minister said that the initiative was part of the broader 'Building Better Government' program which was aimed at trimming around $170million a year from agency expenditure from 2007-08, once full implementation of reforms in procurement and corporate services was complete.
Minister's office: 9222 9211
