Our publication ‘Beyond the Blunt Instrument: The Efficiency Dividend & Its Alternatives’ and related media and commentary

PUBLIC SERVICE IN THE NEWS | Evidence mounts against the efficiency dividend

Agency staff report increased mistakes > A NEW survey reveals that more than 50 per cent of staff from agencies including Centrelink, Medicare and the Child support agency are reporting that more mistakes are being made because of the Gillard Government’s efficiency dividend. Nice work if you can find it > The UK’s ambitious, well-intentioned welfare-to-work programme is struggling against the economic current. Some believe that the payment-by-results system itself is failing. Ian Mulheirn of … more

James Whelan | Public Service Race to the Bottom

This article was first published on ABC’s The Drum here. The Gillard Government’s announcement last week to cut public sector spending by $1.5 billion is unwise fiscal policy, out of step with community attitudes and a significant broken promise. Increasing the efficiency dividend from 1.5 per cent to 4 per cent will tighten the vice on Australian Public Service agencies that are already stretched after two decades of belt-tightening. The direct consequences will include contracted … more

James Whelan | Hard to Know Where the Axe Will Fall

The public service is a political victim in an economic debate obsessed with racing to a surplus. When Wayne Swan delivered his mini-budget last week, he announced a further 2.5% in cuts to the public sector without any evidence of the impact. At CPD we step in to tell our politicians why they must put their axes down, revealing the consequences of the continual squeeze placed on our public services by the ‘efficiency dividend’. In … more

 

Jennifer Doggett: Bean counters’ diet that is starving us all

Jennifer Doggett, the author of our new paper, ‘Beyond the Blunt Instrument: the Efficiency Dividend and its alternatives’ writes about her findings in the Public Sector Informant in the Canberra Times. After 20 years of arbitrary budget cuts, the bureaucracy is effectively eating itself. Jennifer illustrates what’s wrong with the Efficiency Dividend: “As anyone who has tried budgeting knows, there is a limit to the effectiveness of most cost-cutting measures. People who buy expensive take-away food for … more

Markus Mannheim: Public Sector lifts costs in budget ‘game’

The Efficiency Dividend – the main mechanism used to drive performance improvements across the Australian Public Service (APS) – has been chipping away at public service budgets for 20 years. While initially it may have helped reduce excess spending, its effects are now eroding the ability of government agencies to provide core services. Today we launched our latest paper, ‘Beyond the Blunt Instrument: the Efficiency Dividend and its alternatives’ . In it, Jennifer Doggett discusses … more