The Community and Public Sector Union, which represents members of the Australian Public Service (APS), welcomes the Albanese Labor Government’s plans to shift away from a current over-reliance on outsourced consultancy work and towards an in-house consulting model.
The outsourcing arrangements as they stand not only come at a huge cost to the taxpayer but fundamentally undermine the capacity of the APS and lack transparency and accountability.
The CPSU and its members have been calling for this reform and raising the alarm about the wasteful use of taxpayer money on outsourced contractors and consultants.
The establishment of in-house consulting was a recommendation of the inquiry into the capability of the Australian Public Service held in 2021.
Quotes attributable to CPSU National Secretary, Melissa Donnelly:
“There is an extraordinary level of skill right across the APS, but currently that isn’t being used well enough.”
“For far too long we have seen the government outsource the same sort of work time and time again, rather than utilising the APS and the huge skillset that already exists within it.
“The work that people could be doing in-house is being farmed out to private firms at a huge cost to the taxpayer.”
“It is immensely frustrating for talented and capable public servants to have work they could be doing and work they want to be doing, being outsourced right before their eyes.”
“There will be detail to work through but what we do know is that there is capacity across the APS to do this work in-house and rebuild the skills and expertise of the public sector as we go about doing that.”
