❓ A WA parliamentary question probes the growth of public sector employment, its costs, regional distribution, and impact on job creation targets. The government's response cites data limitations due to reforms and provides aggregate salary expense figures.
AnsweredQoN 5431Legislative Assembly
Asked
28 August 2019
Member
Portfolio
Premier; Minister for Public Sector Management; State Development, Jobs and Trade; Federal-State Relations
QuestionView source ↗
I refer to an article published in The Australian on 16 August 2019, referring to the growth of public sector employment in WA by 59 per cent over the last two years, and I ask: (a) Can you provide a breakdown, by agency, of where public sector jobs have been created; (b) What is the total cost to the WA Government for creating these public sector positions over the past two years; (c) Can you provide a breakdown, by agency, of how many public sector jobs have been created in regional Western Australia; (d) How many of the total positions filled, have replaced roles that were vacated as part of the State Government's VTSS program; (e) What percentage of the State Government's target to create 30,000 jobs in regional WA by 2023-24 has been achieved through recruitment to the public sector; and (f) What percentage of the State Government's target to create 150,000 jobs by 2023-24 has been achieved through recruitment to the public sector?
AnswerView source ↗
Answered
15 October 2019
Response time
11 days
(a) No. It is not possible to identify changes by agency since March 2017 due to the Machinery of Government reforms. Public Sector Commission data shows employment in the WA public sector increased by about 1717 people between 2016-17 and 2017-18 (annual average). Public sector data for 2018-19 will be published in November 2019.
(b) The Annual Report on State Finances, published in September each year reported that general government sector salaries expense over the three years to 2018-19 was:
Salaries are part of aggregate costs and increases in one class of spending have in part been addressed by reductions in other classes of spending. The 2019-20 Budget forecasts expense growth to remain at an average of just 1.3 per cent per year across the four years to 2022-23. The Budget also shows that total salary costs are forecast to increase by 1.6 per cent in 2019-20 and 1.9 per cent on average across the four years to 2022-23. This follows headline growth in salaries of 0.6 per cent in 2018-19 and compares to an average of 5.8 per cent per annum over the preceding decade.
(c) No. It is not possible to identify changes by agency since March 2017 due to Machinery of Government reforms. Public Sector Commission data shows public sector employment in regional WA increased by about 384 people between 2016-17 and 2017-18 (annual average).
(d) A requirement of the Voluntary Targeted Separation Scheme was for agencies to ensure that roles vacated were to be abolished and not to be replaced.
(e) Refer to (c).
(f) Refer to (a).
(b) The Annual Report on State Finances, published in September each year reported that general government sector salaries expense over the three years to 2018-19 was:
Salaries are part of aggregate costs and increases in one class of spending have in part been addressed by reductions in other classes of spending. The 2019-20 Budget forecasts expense growth to remain at an average of just 1.3 per cent per year across the four years to 2022-23. The Budget also shows that total salary costs are forecast to increase by 1.6 per cent in 2019-20 and 1.9 per cent on average across the four years to 2022-23. This follows headline growth in salaries of 0.6 per cent in 2018-19 and compares to an average of 5.8 per cent per annum over the preceding decade.
(c) No. It is not possible to identify changes by agency since March 2017 due to Machinery of Government reforms. Public Sector Commission data shows public sector employment in regional WA increased by about 384 people between 2016-17 and 2017-18 (annual average).
(d) A requirement of the Voluntary Targeted Separation Scheme was for agencies to ensure that roles vacated were to be abolished and not to be replaced.
(e) Refer to (c).
(f) Refer to (a).
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