Senior staff levels lower than claimed
Letter to the Editor – Crikey
17 September
Dear Sir/Madam
Crikey's 'Tips and Rumours' (Friday, item 6) is incorrect and misleading, so let me correct the errors: there are in fact 105 Senior Executive Service (SES) officers in the Department, and not the 200 claimed.
The department's total headcount is about 7000, with 105 SES employees (including the Secretary). This SES headcount is entirely consistent with Australian Public Service ratios of SES representation as a proportion of ongoing APS employees.
The National Training Branch has 1 SES officer, nine EL2s, 22 EL1s and a further 42 staff – far from the figures your unnamed correspondent reported. Employees on temporary transfer from other parts of the department who are working as subject experts assisting in the design and development of technical training, are included in this total.
And yes, unfortunately our national training manager was head-hunted by another Commonwealth agency, and the department expects to announce a very capable successor shortly. We all know it's a tight and competitive employment market place.
There has been no diminishing of the department’s commitment to training its staff in response to the Palmer and Comrie reports – in fact quite the opposite with $12M earmarked in the 2007-08 departmental budget for staff training.
In as much as the other references to our Systems for People information technology programme, allow me again to correct your informant's misinformation.
In October 2006, just four months after the Systems for People programme commenced, an interim client search facility was introduced that provided a single point of access to the department’s four major systems.
This has been in use since then by staff who have a need to know and who are security-cleared. The Client Centric Portal represents a more advanced search facility covering the full range of departmental systems.
It is being rolled out progressively, again only to those staff who need access to client records to do their job.
The department’s security protocols provide that only staff who have a 'need to know' will have access to every single one of our 91 million client records.
The Government announced the Systems for People programme, valued at $495m over four years, in the May 2006 Budget. IBM was selected as the strategic partner for the programme.
The programme is operating to an extremely rapid timeline and has already released a number of improvements to business processes, quality control, decision support and record keeping. It comprises a mix of departmental staff, IBM specialist contractors and other contractors.
As was made clear when announced by the Government, the programme runs over four years and is running on time and delivering excellent results.
And finally, Systems for People is already meeting many of the recommendations of the Palmer and Comrie reports.
Furthermore, it is making major contribution to significant business transformation and strengthened client service and business operations across the department.
Sandi Logan
National Communications Manager
Department of Immigration and Citizenship