HEALTH DEPARTMENT LIBRARY

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:08): Has the Minister for Health approved the closure of the Department of Health library and the reduction in policy staff of up to 64 personnel, full-time equivalents, within his department? A memorandum distributed on 17 June 2009 by Dr Sherbon, the Chief Executive of the Department of Health, states that the current Department of Health library, amongst other services listed in the memorandum, will be transferred and/or closed. The memorandum also states that the full-time equivalent reductions will be made from the strategic planning and analysis team in policy and intergovernmental relations.

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (15:09): I thank the deputy leader for her questions. I know her great interest in jobs, particularly her own.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Yes; not her own—other person's jobs. In December 2008, the state government announced a number of initiatives to address the impact of the global financial crisis. This government is committed to prioritising front-line service delivery and, in fact, as we have said many times, we have increased the number of doctors by over 900 and the number of nurses by 2,800-plus since we have been in government but we do have to make some changes to other non front-line services.

I assure the house, the member and anybody else who is listening that there will be no forced redundancies, as is our policy, but across SA Health a number of efficiency initiatives have already been implemented including ICT centralisation, finance reform and supply chain reform projects which have saved an enormous amount of money.

A number of areas have been identified where services can be consolidated. The Department of Health library function, which is currently in the Hindmarsh Square building, will be transferred and combined with the RAH SA Pathology Library which will manage those services. It makes sense to have those services closer to where people are working.

The functions of the Aboriginal Health Division's Liaison and Strategy Team and Community Health Improvement will be transferred to the regions and other divisions. However, as part of the national agreement on indigenous health, we are hiring 133 full-time equivalent front-line Aboriginal health workers, so fewer people in head office and more people out in the field.

The Health Intelligence Branch in the Policy and Intergovernment Relations Division will be amalgamated with the Health System Performance Team in Operations and there will be full-time equivalent reductions in strategic planning and policy areas of the department and other administrative services. Full-time equivalent reductions will occur in epidemiology and there will be a review of clinical epidemiology roles within the health regions.

These changes will result in 64 full-time equivalent positions being declared excess to requirements. I just point out that, within the health sector, I think we have something like 26,000 people working, mostly delivering services, so we are looking at 64 full-time positions. Targeted voluntary separation packages are expected to be on offer to the affected permanent employees.

I do find it strange that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition would ask questions about public servant numbers and the loss of a number of positions given her continual aggressive attack on public servants within the health portfolio and the continued attack by those opposite on this government's management of the Public Service. They, at the last election, promised thousands and thousands of job losses. We are making small targeted changes to maintain our budget.