House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-06-18 Daily Xml

Contents

ECONOMIC POLICY UNIT

In reply to Mrs REDMOND (Heysen) (20 June 2012) (Estimates Committee A).

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts): I have been advised of the following:

The Economic Policy unit is composed of six FTE staff positions which transferred from a larger business unit of the former Department of Trade and Economic Development, effective 1 January 2012, as a result of machinery of government changes.

The estimated result of $691,000 for 2011-12 reflects the salaries, on-costs and associated shared corporate costs for those six positions. In addition, there is a project budget for specialist studies which was not transferred to DPC until 1 July 2012, because the budget for 2011-12 had been fully allocated. This accounts for $0.2 million of the increase.

A further $0.2 million of the increase is due to funding for the Competitiveness Council project, which was transferred within DPC from the Office of the Economic Development Board to the Economic Policy branch. This occurred late in the 2011-12 financial year and is reflected in the FTE increase of 1.8 as of 30 June 2012.

The remaining $0.1 million increase reflects savings in 2011-12 due to the timing of filling positions.