Department of the Premier and Cabinet, $260,146,000

Administered Items for the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, $1,976,000

Membership:

Mr van Holst Pellekaan substituted for Mr Pisoni.

Mr Speirs substituted for Ms Sanderson.

Minister:

Hon. J.R. Rau, Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for Consumer and Business Services, Minister for the City of Adelaide.

Departmental Advisers:

Ms E. Ranieri, Commissioner for Public Sector Employment, Office for the Public Sector.

Dr D. Russell, Chief Executive, Department of the Premier and Cabinet.

Mr S. Woolhouse, Chief Financial Officer, Department of the Premier and Cabinet.

Mr J. Schell, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Procurement Officer, Department of the Premier and Cabinet.

The CHAIR: I declare the proposed payments open for examination. I refer members to the Agency Statements, Volume 3. Do you have an opening statement, Attorney?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: As I said, it is good to be with you.

The CHAIR: Member for Bright, do you have an opening statement, or is it straight into questions?

Mr SPEIRS: Straight into questions. I refer to Budget Paper 4, Volume 3, pages 166 and 167, Program 7: Public Sector Performance, specifically the Workforce Information Report. In 2014, the government launched the Jobs4Youth SA program to stimulate the recruitment of young trainees in the SA public sector, particularly from the northern and southern Adelaide regions which experience high unemployment. The latest Workforce Information Report by the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment shows that between 2014 and 2016 the total number of trainees and apprentices in the general government sector more than halved, from 312 to 153. My first question is: what was the total number of trainees and apprentices employed in the general government sector at the end of June 2017?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Just so I am clear, you are asking about apprentices and trainees, or just trainees?

Mr SPEIRS: If you could split them.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am not trying to be tricky. It is just that I have some information here and I do not have other information.

Mr SPEIRS: Can you give me the figure for trainees first?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am advised that as of 5 July this year there were 720 placements for Jobs4Youth trainees. Of those, 232 are ongoing, 123 are temporary contracts where there may be a conversion to a permanent position in the event of the budget being available, and 134 fall into the 'other' category, which I am advised includes resignation due to medical illness, personal issues, to go off for further study or to get employment elsewhere. The balance, which is 231, are undertaking the Jobs4Youth program.

Mr SPEIRS: So, that figure you gave of 720 placements is an accumulative total of people who are trainees and apprentices, not just trainees?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No, I am advised that is just trainees, and the breakdown I gave you is how that 720 is made up. The apprentices are a separate proposition.

Mr SPEIRS: Okay. Does that include graduates?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes.

Mr SPEIRS: So, it is trainees and graduates. Are you able to give a breakdown of which are which?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I will take it on notice.

Mr GRIFFITHS: Is the age demographic people up to 25? Is that identified as being part of the program?

Ms RANIERI: The Jobs4Youth program is up to the age of 29, I believe, but for the recent program we advertised in relation to our flexibility for the future as part of encouraging agencies to employ graduates we have no age limit.

Mr SPEIRS: How many of the trainees and graduates have received ongoing employment at the end of their 12-month program?

Ms RANIERI: At the moment, it is 232, and 123, as the Deputy Premier said, are in the temporary contracts that might go on to ongoing. Of course, 231 at the moment are undertaking the program and they could end up in ongoing work as well. So, right at this moment it is 232.

Mr SPEIRS: Thank you. Can you provide us with the total program cost per trainee, including expenditure by the Office for the Public Sector and participating agencies?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I think we will have to take that one on notice.

Mr SPEIRS: Presuming you do not have the answer, could you include the figure for graduates as well?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No problem.

The CHAIR: Before you go on, member for Bright, it was remiss of me, earlier, not to mention that by agreement by 2.15 we will go from the Office for the Public Sector to Service SA and Shared Services. Are you happy with that?

Mr SPEIRS: Yes, I am comfortable with that, thank you. In the same line of questioning, during 2015-16 the number of executives in the general government sector increased by 28 to 1,140 as at June 2016. How many executives were employed as at June 2017?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Again, I think we had better take that on notice. The member for Bright is quite reasonably drilling down on these, and we are perfectly fine, but it is a fair degree of detail that he is asking for. I am very happy to try to retrieve that for him, but it is just that we do not necessarily have all that sitting here.

Mr SPEIRS: I understand; that is fine. When it comes to classifying what an executive is, is that classified by pay grade—the amount that is paid—or is it classified by position?

Ms RANIERI: If they are employed as executives, they are either in the South Australian Executive Service rank 1 or South Australian Executive Service rank 2. However, there are a lot of teachers and doctors and other occupational groups that would, I guess, have a similar kind of salary, but they have more specific roles that have a leadership attachment to it and also some other technical expertise. So, in terms of the executive service, it is SAES 1 or 2, and then there is a whole lot of other arrangements in relation to attraction and retention allowances.

Mr SPEIRS: I do recall from a previous Auditor-General's Report that there was a large number of paramedics—this is topical at the moment, but that it is not why I am asking this—who fell into the executive classification because of the amount of overtime they had done; they were seen to be classed by the Auditor-General, and by SAES as well, as executives. Does that 1,140, which is the number of executives in June 2016, include people who have reached a pay threshold to be categorised as such, or is it just people in SAES 1 and 2?

Ms RANIERI: It is just people in the South Australian Executive Service. They would not be classified as executives. I think some of the detail you are looking for is actually in the Workforce Information Report that I produce. It is always the year before, so you do not have the 2017 information. I am collecting that now, and it will have a breakdown of all those categories. We do talk about amounts over $100,000 and give you the categories. At the moment, what you are asking for is the South Australian Executive Service 1 and 2.

Mr SPEIRS: Moving on to Budget Papers 3 and 4, Volume 3, page 167, as well as pages 32 and 33, we have a highlight of 2016 around the negotiation of enterprise agreements. The 2016-17 budget announced a policy to limit public sector wages growth to 1.5 per cent per annum over the next three years of each enterprise agreement. What was the outcome, given that there was real growth in total employee expenses of 2.2 per cent in 2016-17 when the budget provision was for growth of 0.2 per cent?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am not sure I understand that question well enough to be able to answer it. Could you either rephrase it or repeat it?

Mr SPEIRS: I will rephrase it. There was real growth in the last financial year in total employee expenses of 2.2 per cent when the budget provision was for growth of 0.2 per cent. How did that outcome occur?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Obviously the answer is made up of many, many little pieces. I think that is something we would have to get the Treasurer to comment on rather than me. I would raise that one with the Treasurer, or with Mr Reynolds if he is prepared to speak.

Mr SPEIRS: Is the 1.5 per cent per annum target, I suppose you could call it, governed by the Office for the Public Sector or by the commissioner?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: It works this way: the government has set a policy, the policy was an endorsed cabinet position, and the Office for the Public Sector then goes about its business in an attempt to give effect to the cabinet decision.

Mr SPEIRS: Or the commissioner would have conversations with chief executives to try to rein in growth, and obviously it comes into enterprise bargaining and things like that, which are the responsibility of the commissioner. Those are the sort of activities that the commissioner would undertake in her aim to keep that 1.5 per cent in check.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes.

Mr GRIFFITHS: If I can just seek clarification on that. The instances of where enterprise bargaining results in above the 1.5 per cent, is that a discretionary opportunity for the commissioner to make the decision to accept that or does it have to go to the minister and then to cabinet?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: That is a good question. The way that works is that in the event of there being pretty much any enterprise agreement, the formality of the enterprise agreement being signed off on, as public sector minister I take the thing into cabinet and cabinet then either agrees or does not agree with the submission. Assuming cabinet agrees, the government is then in a position to execute its part of the enterprise agreement, and the practicalities of it are managed by the commissioner's office. The loop includes cabinet before approval, with me being the minister responsible for taking the document into cabinet.

That said, the actual generation of that document can vary from time to time depending on which department is concerned. For instance, if the enterprise agreement we are dealing with deals with a transport matter, frequently, the early part of the conversation between the employees and the government will be at least moderated by or managed by DPTI. If the group is health-related people, usually, it will be Health that is initially involved in the conversation. Occasionally, what can happen is that there is an opportunity for a trade-off, and—

Mr GRIFFITHS: That is what enterprise bargaining is meant to be.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Indeed—and so I think it is fair to say that there are occasionally circumstances where the 1.5 per cent increase represents the baseline and the bargain contemplates some benefit to government which warrants an additional payment in order to secure that benefit.

Mr GRIFFITHS: On the basis of you, minister, being responsible for taking it to cabinet as a submission, is the minister responsible for the departmental area a co-signatory to the submission with you?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No. That said, as a matter of practice, the commissioner and her staff would obviously be in intimate contact with the relevant minister, and if there were any matters of controversy, there would be a discussion between the commissioner and/or me and the minister to try to resolve those matters. The other thing is, because all these enterprise agreements naturally enough involve an expenditure of funds, we have a committee that has the rather enchanting acronym of SPCC—sorry, it is now called BPCC. I never can remember what that stands for, but in any event, because this involves money, as a matter of process, we would go through whatever the commissioner needs to do and the DPC people need to do with whoever the agency is.

A proposal is worked up that makes a certain recommendation. That recommendation would go to this committee which is, if you like, the budget committee of cabinet. That would consider the matter and, if it required further information, it would ask for further information. If it required anything, it would do that, and then it would go from there to cabinet. I would be the person responsible for signing it in and then cabinet would decide, 'Do you agree or do you not agree with this proposal?' Assuming the answer to that is yes, the commissioner then takes up the matter from there and gives effect to that agreement and organises for the appropriate instruments to be executed and so forth.

Mr SPEIRS: Last year, we had real growth in total employee expenses of 2.2 per cent, and last year's budget predicted that, in the current financial year 2017-18, there would be no real growth in total employee expenses. However, the current budget has been revised to have real growth of 1.3 per cent in this budget, so the accumulation of that is 3.5 per cent. If we were aiming for 1.5 per cent per year, it would be 3 per cent, so we are 0.5 over that just with the prediction in the current budget. Does this suggest that the government will be unable to meet its target of limiting wages growth to 1.5 per cent per annum over the three-year cycle.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Again, I suspect that is more of a question for the Treasurer. Those of us in this committee are really more to do with the execution of the decisions, as opposed to the people who set the higher economic policy framework, so I think I would defer to the Treasurer in respect of that.

Mr SPEIRS: The former chief executive of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet told the Budget and Finance Committee last September that public sector contracts should be limited to three years, not five years. Is the Office for the Public Sector and, more broadly, the government implementing such a policy?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No, I am advised that that is not the case, although speaking for myself, I think there is a case to be made for horses for courses in terms of public sector employment contracts at the higher end. I personally do not necessarily have the view that it should be, come rain or shine, five years full stop. I think there is the flexibility now to be able to do that and, again, for my part, I would encourage agencies that are engaging people at that high end to turn their minds to whether or not the five-year maximum is automatically the starting point for that conversation, because it may not be. Mr Russell, for example, is on a three-year contract.

Mr GRIFFITHS: On the basis of the reduced period being available, does that come at a financial cost: for example, for a shorter tenure there is a level of risk for the future employment opportunities for that person, so is there additional payment made to reflect upon that shorter time?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I think the reality is that at that end of the employment spectrum it is a bargain between the government and the individual because we are talking about relatively few individuals who probably have a rather particular set of skills. You might say longer tenure, lower salary; shorter tenure, higher salary—the risk/reward trade-off. I guess that makes sense but ultimately it is a matter for what the Premier can persuade Mr Russell he wants to receive and what Mr Russell wants to receive, for example. That is it, is it not; it is a bargain.

There is another question here that I think needs to be examined and that is whether the whole notion of that very high-end, high skill set part of the public sector could be more flexible than it is. I think that is a legitimate question and is something that we need to consider.

Mr SPEIRS: What do you mean by more flexible?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: In terms of being able to attract the appropriate people for particular jobs we should try and be making the sort of offers to those people that meet that. That might mean stepping outside of the 'one size fits all' solution—for example, the five-year contract may not suit everybody. When you are getting to the point where you are talking about staff who are by any definition key personnel it is critical to have the right people. It is all about people. It is not about numbers and statistics, it's about people. My view is that you do your best to get the best people and if that involves thinking outside the box, well, so be it.

Mr SPEIRS: Should that be giving people life tenure and things like that?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No. Unfortunately, that is not one of the boxes that I have in mind.

Mr SPEIRS: I am just querying.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Let's be perfectly frank: at that level we are talking about people who probably possess a skill set which is highly marketable in the public or the private sector in one way or another. If we want to be able to be at the front end of contemporary management skill or contemporary IT skill or whatever it might be, we have to acknowledge that there are private sector people out there who are headhunting for clever, active, smart people, and we need to be at least prepared to participate in that. What I mean by that is not offering people lifetime employment at that high level. I think we just need to be open-minded about the conversation if we are talking about people who are going to fill critical roles.

Mr SPEIRS: Thank you, minister.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Sorry, another point that Dr Russell makes, which is a very good one, is that it may well be the project itself determines the length of time we require the person. If we had a particular project-specific person that we required, we might say it is two years, because the project is only going to last two years. That would be perfectly sensible, and that person might be more than happy to do that, given the appropriate reward.

Mr SPEIRS: Can you advise how many chief executives have had their contracts renewed since 1 January 2017, so this year?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Do we know? I will take that on notice.

Mr SPEIRS: Could you at the same time provide me with the information on the length of time that these contracts have been renewed for?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No problem.

Mr SPEIRS: On Budget Paper 4, Volume 3, page 166 again, does the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment receive complaints from public servants who have grievances to raise about their workplace environment, conditions or activities that occur in the workplace? Does the commissioner receive or is she a clearing house for those sorts of complaints as a matter of course?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I think the answer is, 'Oh yes, she does receive complaints,' as we all do. The commissioner makes the good point that if we are talking here about performance management—and I do not use that in the pejorative sense; I am meaning it in the literal sense of managing your staff—the appropriate place for that to be dealt with is by the management team within the agency from which the complaint comes, unless there is a very good, overwhelming reason why that should not occur. And there may be. It might be that the complaint is in fact about the manager, and that becomes complicated. So those are issues that do need to be managed.

By and large I think one of the things the public sector needs to try to do much better is performance management of its staff. There is no doubt that some parts of government are very good at and active in performance management-type activities, and some are not so good. One of the reasons, by no means the only, that I was keen, for example, to have across-government return to work scheme management, where government agencies were being managed externally by ReturnToWorkSA, was to impose upon the whole of government a uniform, across the board, external management of return to work issues, for example, as a way of actually enhancing and making uniformly better management of return to work issues.

Sadly, because of bizarre things that happened in the very room in which we sit that is not going to happen in the next few days, but that was specifically directed to an aspect of that very problem.

Mr SPEIRS: You have said the commissioner does receive complaints from time to time. Some of that might be the sort of scattergun approach, people complaining to lots of different places. Does the commissioner keep a register of these complaints? Would she keep a tally of what certain complaints were about, whether it be bullying or workplace conditions and things like that? Does she keep data on those complaints?

Ms RANIERI: There are a couple of levels I do get, so we created a very big website presence. The Office for the Public Sector has a generic emailing address, so often I will get informal complaints or things that people are experiencing, so it is registered there and it is at that point that we decide where it might go—often back to the agency. As it was highlighted, we sometimes have to refer it to other places, and we do that.

On the more formal side of the things that we do, I collect data on the breaches of the code of ethics, and that is tabled in the State of the Sector, and how the investigations and some of the improvements we are talking about around processes and investigations occur. It is often not the actual complaint, but more about the outcomes or how it was managed, as the Deputy Premier mentioned. Sometimes it is about how the process went and how people were treated, rather than the actual issue. There are so many variations of it, but we have that information because usually it comes through the website.

Mr SPEIRS: I am happy to move on.

The CHAIR: By agreement, thank you, everybody. We are moving on to Service SA and Shared Services now. Does the Attorney wish to change advisers or are you happy with the ones you have?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: We are happy.

The CHAIR: Member for Bright, do you have any questions?

Mr SPEIRS: Moving on to Service SA, Budget Paper 4, Volume 3, page 163. The Service SA office, portfolio, or however we would describe it, is Program 6: Government Services of Budget Paper 4, Volume 3. If we compare this budget paper to previous years, there are no sub-programs this year: is there any reason for that?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: As I understand it, there were machinery of government changes and internal restructuring within the department. The changes to program structure, for the purpose of presentation in the present budget papers, is different. The main activities of the department are now consolidated into three programs, which are based around: first, the Premier and Cabinet policy and support program; secondly, ministerial support services and community programs; and, thirdly, provision of government services.

Two programs were reported separately in last year's budget papers, which were strategic engagement and communications and the Office for Digital Government. They are now included in program 1, which is the Premier and Cabinet policy and support program. The two programs that relate to statutory functions of the Agent-General and the State Coordinator-General have not changed. The Office for the Public Sector, including the statutory components which relate to the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment, is unchanged and continues to be reported under Program 7: Public Sector Performance.

As a result of the MoG changes, Program 5: Economic Development Board, Program 8: Mineral Resources and Energy and Program 9: Water Industry Technical and Safety Regulation have transferred from the Department of State Development, but I am advised that there is no financial impact as a result of any of those.

Mr SPEIRS: Just to be clear, Program 6: Government Services, which we are dealing with now, obviously has Shared Services and Service SA in it, but are the chief technology officer and strategic procurement located in program 6 as well?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am advised that they are within program 6 as well.

Mr SPEIRS: Is there anything else in program 6?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No.

Mr SPEIRS: So, it is those four: Shared Services, Service SA, the chief technology officer and strategic procurement?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am told that program 6 is Shared Services, Service SA, ITC and strategic procurement.

Mr SPEIRS: And ITC is the chief technology officer?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes, StateNet.

Mr GRIFFITHS: You did refer to the Coordinator-General also in your earlier response.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: That is separate.

Mr GRIFFITHS: Okay, thank you.

Mr SPEIRS: There seems to be a jump in FTEs from the 2016-17 budget of 1,155.5 FTEs to an estimated result of 1,185.4 FTEs for 2016-17, and then a reduction in budget terms back to 1,145.1 FTEs. Can you explain the nature of these jumps and the reasons?

Mr WOOLHOUSE: We have had an increase in terms of the 2015-16 actual. As you said, it goes up in the 2016-17 estimated result. Primarily, 157 FTEs relate to labour hire and vacancies, essentially, that we use within Shared Services, Service SA and ICT, so that is a total of 157, which is then offset by 20 FTEs, which is a change in our corporate overhead allocations over the program. Where it then reduces from the 2016-17 estimated result down to the 2017-18 budget, is essentially because the CHRIS 21 payroll reform project has been completed.

We also have a change in corporate overheads again, and we also have a reflection of the State Procurement Board, which came in at the beginning of the year as a program change, but essentially only part of that procurement function remains with us. On page 149, there is a reference to procurement policy governance coming in from Treasury and Finance. Essentially, the whole program did not come in, so we have reflected that and there is an adjustment for that.

Mr SPEIRS: Last year, the estimates committee was told that there are 20-odd Service SA centres 'sprinkled around the place'. Income was budgeted at around $37.653 million, with 324.6 FTEs. Are you able to tell me the figures for those now: the income from Service SA centres and the FTEs?

Mr WOOLHOUSE: For the 2017-18 budget year?

Mr SPEIRS: Yes.

Mr WOOLHOUSE: For the 2017-18 budget, the income we have for Service SA itself is $39.638 million, and the FTEs are 305.2. That does not include overheads; that is just the direct Service SA itself.

Mr SPEIRS: Yes. So, that is a reduction of around 20 FTEs?

Mr WOOLHOUSE: Yes. There have been savings reductions.

Mr SPEIRS: What is the cost of maintaining, on average, these service centres and how many FTEs does each centre have, on average?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I think we will take that one on notice.

Mr SPEIRS: Can you provide the waiting times for the past financial year in the customer service centres, the average speed of the call and the number of inbound calls?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I do not think we have what you are asking for. Can we take that one on notice? We have some information, but it does not answer your question specifically.

Mr SPEIRS: I am happy to hear what you do have, if you think it fits in.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Do you want to just share that with the member for Bright?

Mr SPEIRS: Then if I want more, I will clarify.

Mr WOOLHOUSE: The information we can provide says, essentially, that because Service SA customers have increased their use of online services by 11.3 per cent, this has helped reduce calls by 5.4 per cent, and wait times in metropolitan customer service centres have decreased by 5 per cent. It is only a high-level summary. The detail behind that—

The Hon. J.R. RAU: That does not give the raw numbers you are looking for, does it?

Mr SPEIRS: No. If you could provide that on notice, that would be great. You have given me the increase in online transactions. I assume you do not have this today, but are you able to provide how many online transactions took place?

Mr WOOLHOUSE: I only have the percentages. What we have behind that is the raw numbers that we can provide you.

Mr SPEIRS: That would be great. What was the cost of launching the new look and feel of www.sa.gov.au, which is one of the highlights of Service SA in the last financial year?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I do not believe we have that as a discrete figure. We would have to check that out for you.

Mr SPEIRS: Are you able to tell me why it was decided to revamp the website? Was there an inadequacy with the previous system?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The information I have is that it was redeveloped in 2016 and relaunched in December with a simplified, responsive and mobile-first design to retain its usability across multiple and increasing mobile devices. I think it is a matter of responding to the change in people's habits and the fact that people have these machines now.

Can I say, being a parent, the other day I asked one of my daughters to help me in the kitchen. I went back out to the kitchen and about 10 minutes later she had not emerged, so I sent her a text message saying, 'I'm still waiting.' She sent back, 'Be there in a second,' and about five minutes later she emerged. So, that is where we are.

Mr SPEIRS: She was googling recipes for you.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: She quite possibly was. At least that was the sort of excuse she gave when she eventually showed up. It does show you the all-encompassing nature of these machines, particularly with our younger community members.

Mr SPEIRS: The mySA GOV account is referred to on page 163. How much did this cost to implement and what are the operating expenses for this going forward?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: So you wanted to know how much it costs to run?

Mr SPEIRS: Yes. How much did it cost to implement and then the operating expenses?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: So the implementation of the change to digital that we just referred to?

Mr SPEIRS: No, the mySA GOV account, so that is the online payment system.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The motor vehicles and such. I will have to take that on notice.

Mr SPEIRS: Are you able to tell me what precautions have been put in place or are being planned to secure these online payment accounts and digital licences?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: So these are the integrity elements in the scheme?

Mr SPEIRS: Yes, because the mySA GOV is a whole-of-government account to enable clients to securely complete transactions.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The advice I have on that is that user security is a key consideration and it is ensured through functions such as a barcode that refreshes upon use every 30 seconds to validate credentials. Other security measures include penetration (whatever that is) testing. I confess I do not know anything about what I am about to tell you but I am going to tell you anyway. It sounds rather frightening from my perspective but, nevertheless, penetration testing, encrypted storage, secure connections, screenshot protection and PIN fingerprint protection. Now, I hope that meant something to somebody, but apparently that is very good.

Mr SPEIRS: Have there been any known breaches of mySA GOV?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Not that we are aware of. In my case there would be a complete lack of being able to penetrate it because I do not understand any of what I just said, but of those who manage to get in, we do not know of anybody being the wrong person.

Mr SPEIRS: Do you have triggers in place that would alert you to the fact that someone had made an attempt to hack it or inappropriately access those accounts?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I think we will have to speak to the IT crowd and try to find out that sort of detail. We are moving into a different level there. I understand the question and it is an important question and I would like to make sure we get a proper answer to that.

Mr SPEIRS: I will move on to more bricks and mortar style questioning now. Why do Service SA centres open at 9.30am on Wednesday, but at 9am on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The way everyone has behaved, it appears to be Jason's fault! He has promised to get back to us about why. Either that or it is lost in the mists of time, but we will find out an answer for you.

Mr SPEIRS: I think it is relatively unusual. I am sure that there is an explanation but it probably would not be overly well known in the community why it is 9.30am on Wednesday and not on other days or vice versa. Has any consideration been given to opening Service SA centres on Thursday evenings or Saturday mornings? I note that the Marion and Elizabeth centres are open until 6pm on all weekdays, but has there been any consideration to more broadly opening them on Thursday evenings or Saturday mornings to increase access?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Without having sought any particular advice about it, I would say that on the face of it, the more we can accommodate the needs of the community with the service being delivered, the better, and if that means that we have some different, flexible hours, on the face of it that does not seem like a bad idea. That said, we are consciously trying to move people away from the physical environment and into the digital environment, so to some extent—and I do not say this with any sense of disrespect because I am the very type of individual who will be very likely to be a user of the residual system which is the turn up and speak to somebody system, but that is a shrinking part of the market not a growing part of the market.

So, what we are trying to do is deliver a really easy, highly accessible virtual digital service while still maintaining the physical presence for those people who are more comfortable with that. However, I do not see that physical presence as being the future, if you know what I mean. That said, subject to industrial issues, it may well be that some more flexibility in the hours of opening—and certainly the interesting aspect of 9.30am on one day of the week—is something we should look at.

Mr SPEIRS: Thank you, minister. In the same line of questioning, is the government considering closing any Service SA centres?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Give us a moment. The situation is that there is no plan to close any, but obviously we will continue to look at the amount of activity that is occurring in these centres. Again, my personal view is that, whilst they are being well patronised by the public and are delivering a service that warrants their continuation, I cannot see any good reason to close them. That said, it may be that in five years' time nobody wants to visit one of these places, I do not know.

Dr Russell makes a very good point: the other thing that is being reviewed from time to time is not just whether these service centres appear to be well utilised for their current range of activities, but also whether the government could take advantage of having these footprints all over the place and provide a different or larger range of interactions there. I think the ongoing review of these things operates in a couple of directions. One potential direction is: what more can we usefully do, given the fact we already have a place, and what other place-based things can the state do to communicate with the community, using that existing facility? That is one conversation, and the other conversation is the extent to which people continue to want to be engaging in a face-to-face environment.

Several years ago, all too briefly, I had the good fortune to be minister for tourism. What was then a current topic of some interest was the question of whether Tourism SA required a physical place for the use and handing out of information about tourism in South Australia. It was quite a running issue, as I recall, during that, as I said, all too brief period. I know that at that time, which is now several years ago, there was already a very strong conversation around, 'People aren't going to travel agents so much anymore, they're booking online, they're going to Wotif; they're going to all these other places, like Trivago.' I see them on telly; I have never been on Trivago because I do not know how to do that, but I have seen them on telly.

I suspect a similar thing is going on in a whole range of industries. Banking is another classic example. Years ago, everybody used to queue up in the afternoon to go to the bank and pay their bills and collect their money. Now, what percentage of us physically visits a bank at any time in a year, or needs to? Maybe we do that because we like the bank or whatever, but do we actually need to go? Most of us do not, because we have a machine of some description that enables us to do everything we have to. I think it is just a watching brief, see what happens.

Mr SPEIRS: I refer to page 163, but moving on to Shared Services as opposed to Service SA. There is a significant decline in total income, most notably by the cessation of Shared Services charging arrangements. What were the reasons for this?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Again, I think the member for Bright would probably appreciate that this is the sort of thing that would only happen in government. Apparently, the government was in the habit of charging itself—quite a lot and frequently, and all over the place. It decided, as a matter of red-tape reduction, to stop charging itself and just pay for it, effectively. Am I summarising that—

Dr RUSSELL: You have gone slightly too far, I think.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I have gone too far. I will let Dr Russell give you the more sophisticated version of what I was trying to say.

Dr RUSSELL: The Deputy Premier was absolutely correct, but what he was saying was the costs of delivering these shared services had gone down. The service provision had become more efficient and productive, so it seemed appropriate that we should reduce the costs we were charging the other departments in that situation. So rather than continue to charge them at the higher rate we have lowered the costs of it.

Mr SPEIRS: And that is a reduction of about $80 million, I think. So that is—

Dr RUSSELL: But because it is netted out, it is within government transfers.

Mr SPEIRS: So that is quite substantial.

Dr RUSSELL: Efficiencies have been quite substantial. It was one of the reasons we have Shared Services, that you can deliver from a centre services for all the departments more efficiently than having each individual department do its own work. It is a proof statement of why Shared Services was set up in the first place.

Mr GRIFFITHS: I just seek some clarification. There is a bit of an historical factor in this, where it has been rather challenging, in previous budget papers and Auditor-General's Reports, about the projections for savings to result from Shared Services and what the reality of that actually was. There was a fair difference, and it was in the range of several hundreds of millions of dollars, I think, over a cumulative period of time. With this change in charging structure, if it results in $86.5 million dollars less in income, what are the outgoings and the revenue that comes in as a result of Shared Services charging and costing between government departments?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: It is an important question and I think we need to take it on notice, because it does involve comparisons between projected current performance and historical performance. We need to take that on notice. However, just to fill out the member for Goyder's question, if he does not mind, it has been the subject of conversation for some time that initially, at least, Shared Services was projected to deliver certain savings which it appeared not to be delivering, and I think he is asking questions about what is going on now.

Mr GRIFFITHS: Only given that you identify a lesser income of $86.5 million. There must still be a substantial cost and a revenue associated with it.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes. We will follow that up.

Dr RUSSELL: There is another wrinkle to this.

Mr WOOLHOUSE: Essentially, agencies received appropriation to pay Shared Services, as you have identified. That was the charging rate. What we were getting at is that instead of the agencies receiving the funds to then pay Shared Services we have now stopped that process. Shared Services is now directly appropriated, which is why the net cost of service has gone up in that program, and agencies do not receive the funding but just receive the service. They then do not have to get a monthly bill and do all that processing, Shared Services does not have to raise the invoices and all that sort of stuff. That is essentially what we have been able to reduce.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: So I was actually nearer the mark in the beginning.

Dr RUSSELL: I was almost there.

Mr GRIFFITHS: I will actually give you the credit. The reason I asked the follow-up question is that, Mr Russell, you confused me by talking about a reduction in costs. That is why I sought the clarification. I think I like the last answer better than yours.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: What we will do is we will ask these two gentlemen to sort it out and then we will compile a piece of paper which we will forward to you which is their considered and unanimous opinion. But I too prefer the answer to the extreme left there. I think that was a very good answer.

Mr SPEIRS: Minister, are there still plans to move Shared Services staff to new office accommodation at Port Adelaide?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes.

Mr SPEIRS: When will this be done?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am advised that the lease commences on 1 May next year and the movement of personnel is anticipated to be in June next year.

Mr SPEIRS: Will all staff of Shared Services transfer to Port Adelaide or will some be at another site or sites?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am advised that 170 members of staff will be relocated to the Port and the balance will remain in the city. I assume your next question will be: how many is the balance?

Mr SPEIRS: Yes.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am told that the balance is about 450, but can you just take that as being roughly that number, and we will give you a more detailed answer.

Mr SPEIRS: A smaller proportion is going to Port Adelaide than overall.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes.

Mr WOOLHOUSE: Essentially, who is going is accounts payable, accounts receivable and our financial accounting functions, broadly. Essentially, within the CBD, there will still be payroll services and the other support functions of Shared Services itself.

Mr SPEIRS: One final question: do you think the division of that branch will hinder productivity or stop overall work outcomes for the—

Mr WOOLHOUSE: The groups that are going are all related. They are traditionally financial and accounting type functions: they are AP, AR, tax and so forth. They are all related, so no, they are actually—

Mr SPEIRS: But would their more senior management be retained in the CBD—

Mr WOOLHOUSE: Essentially, they are the transactional services and the financial accounting elements associated with them. When they were in agencies, they were essentially grouped together.

The CHAIR: We could go on all day, but we will not.

Mr SPEIRS: I thank the minister and his public servants for their openness today and I particularly thank the many public servants behind the scenes who have been involved in the production of many briefings, no doubt.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Thank you for noticing. It is lovely to see that the member for Bright does notice. As he knows, a lot of people put in a lot of work. Thank you for thanking them because they do work quite hard getting ready for this.

The CHAIR: I declare the proposed payments for the Department of the Premier and Cabinet and administered items of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet be referred to committee A.

Sitting suspended from 14:48 to 15:03.