Public Servants Being Useless

[Saint]

It needs its own thread because the sheer incompetence of people earning massive salaries in Canberra goes beyond party politics.

There's a class of incompetent people who are shuffled from Department to Department on massive salaries and continue to provide shoddy, illegal and incompetent advice/service.

I'll start with somebody from DPS being completely hopeless, uncaring and called out by Moss.

 

[Saint]

 

[The Punter]

It needs its own thread because the sheer incompetence of people earning massive salaries in Canberra goes beyond party politics.

There's a class of incompetent people who are shuffled from Department to Department on massive salaries and continue to provide shoddy, illegal and incompetent advice/service.

I'll start with somebody from DPS being completely hopeless, uncaring and called out by Moss.

To be fair, those Canberra Parl House clocks are bespoke and very expensive.

If it needs to be done then do it, but make sure you all push back when "why are they spending so much money on politicians" comes back at you.

 

[Saint]

To be fair, those Canberra Parl House clocks are bespoke and very expensive.

If it needs to be done then do it, but make sure you all push back when "why are they spending so much money on politicians" comes back at you.

So get non-bespoke ones which are not very expensive, but are at least legible for people with sight problems.

Leaving a non-compliant clock in place because they're "special" is not a good excuse.

 

[The Punter]

So get non-bespoke ones which are not very expensive, but are at least legible for people with sight problems.

Leaving a non-compliant clock in place because they're "special" is not a good excuse.

The clocks need to be bespoke - they contain the mechanism for telling members there is a division in the houses. The bells ring through the clocks. I'm sure a solution is available, but it would be expensive.

 

[Saint]

The clocks need to be bespoke - they contain the mechanism for telling members there is a division in the houses. The bells ring through the clocks. I'm sure a solution is available, but it would be expensive.

Synchronised clocks with an alarm function.

Somebody in Parliament House actually decided that was in the too-hard basket and that leaving the old non-compliant clocks was the only solution? Or it's prohibitively expensive?

How safe is Parliament House if these buffoons can't even write a brief for a set of clocks with alarms centrally linked?

 

[HairyO]

The clocks need to be bespoke - they contain the mechanism for telling members there is a division in the houses. The bells ring through the clocks. I'm sure a solution is available, but it would be expensive.

There would be 50 solutions which are cheap and one which costs a heap.

Which do you reckon would end up being chosen?

 

[Crankyhawk]

The clocks need to be bespoke - they contain the mechanism for telling members there is a division in the houses. The bells ring through the clocks. I'm sure a solution is available, but it would be expensive.

a mobile phone app for politicians? with alert tones?

 

[Saint]

There would be 50 solutions which are cheap and one which costs a heap.

Which do you reckon would end up being chosen?

Depends what the Management Consultants getting paid $400 an hour say is the best option.

After they spend $300k on the evaluation, I'm guessing they won't pop down to Blackwoods for an off-the-shelf solution for $10k including installation.

Then the pollies will demand the newest Phones and all their data paid for including family, friends, pets.

 

[Saint]

This one isn't really their fault.

But I can't think of a bigger waste of time and taxpayer money than having a coronial inquest into the health of this Bikie fl*g.

Aus bikie boss 'organised mass prison self-harming' before death

Brent Reker transferred out of a specialist mental health unit into another section of the prison just an hour before he died in December 2019.

www.1news.co.nz

Surely some politician can step in and over-rule that there's an investigation and not bother trying to related the mental health case of a bikie with other inmates.

 

[Rob R]

Cam you please change the title to be more accurate Canberta public servants are useless as whilst you could sack 50% of Canberra based staff tomorrow and only see benefits, the same doesn't apply to public servants delivering front line services in the region.

As a retiring army officer said in front of hundreds of staff at a business comtinuity seminar in Russell Offices a couple of years back when asked to think about the impact of Russell being attacked "He said there would be mass confusion in the ADF as we would have to rethink if XXX are really our enemy after doing that to Russell"

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[burge13]

Cam you please change the title to be more accurate Canberta public servants are useless as whilst you could sack 50% of Canberra based staff tomorrow and only see benefits, the same doesn't apply to public servants delivering front line services in the region.

As a retiring army officer said in front of hundreds of staff at a business comtinuity seminar in Russell Offices a couple of years back when asked to think about the impact of Russell being attacked "He said there would be mass confusion in the ADF as we would have to rethink if XXX are really our enemy after doing that to Russell"

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I'm in the public service atm. Historically been in health which is fast paced and probably understaffed to a more general agency now and you could walk through our 9 story building sacking every 3rd person at random and there would be zero loss to the public. The bloat is absolutely insane

2x more 'employee relations' and wishy washy HR roles here than a previous health agency 6x the size. It's madness

The public service is useless for the most part, unfortunately the most important services aren't funded as well as they should be! Which only further proves how useless the public service is atm. Needs a complete clean out and any manager who's only manager through longevity forced to reapply for their job. Executive should honestly get bonuses for sticking to budget too, why bother atm, no accountability anyway

 

[The Punter]

I'm in the public service atm. Historically been in health which is fast paced and probably understaffed to a more general agency now and you could walk through our 9 story building sacking every 3rd person at random and there would be zero loss to the public. The bloat is absolutely insane

2x more 'employee relations' and wishy washy HR roles here than a previous health agency 6x the size. It's madness

The public service is useless for the most part, unfortunately the most important services aren't funded as well as they should be! Which only further proves how useless the public service is atm. Needs a complete clean out and any manager who's only manager through longevity forced to reapply for their job. Executive should honestly get bonuses for sticking to budget too, why bother atm, no accountability anyway

The easiest place to find efficiencies inside the public service are in HR/People and Culture departments. A motza could be saved for taxpayers in that space.

 

[Mofra]

The easiest place to find efficiencies inside the public service are in HR/People and Culture departments. A motza could be saved for taxpayers in that space.

"External consultants" - e.g. former employees who now charge at least 2x the price

 

[burge13]

The easiest place to find efficiencies inside the public service are in HR/People and Culture departments. A motza could be saved for taxpayers in that space.

If there is a person outside HR in the public service who respects HR I'm yet to meet them. A more useless function you will not find

Not in theory, very important. In practice, they do ******* nothing and pay themselves additional allowances to achieve it too

 

[Saint]

The easiest place to find efficiencies inside the public service are in HR/People and Culture departments. A motza could be saved for taxpayers in that space.

Middle management who create the work for themselves and each other to complete.

It would be faaaar more efficient if some lower ranks just gave raw advice/feedback to senior staff. It doesn't need 3 levels of polishing just to provide slightly more concise feedback to the Senior staff. (Senior staff need to not then blame their mistakes on the "incomplete advice").

 

[burge13]

Middle management who create the work for themselves and each other to complete.

It would be faaaar more efficient if some lower ranks just gave raw advice/feedback to senior staff. It doesn't need 3 levels of polishing just to provide slightly more concise feedback to the Senior staff. (Senior staff need to not then blame their mistakes on the "incomplete advice").

Done by design.

Directors surround themselves with hierarchy to absolve themselves of any accountability. They also design process to slow things down, like approving the recruitment of a vacancy is 6 stages of approval in many places. WTF can't the manager of that position, supposedly accountable for that budget, simply approve recruitment begin...

a major hospital I worked at, I needed to get a brief an executive that second. Typed up, endorsed by the key stakeholders etc and sent it to their EA via the records management system. The EA returned it as the brief was on the wrong template (v1.6 not 1.7)

Completely unacceptable when really urgent obviously but if the equipment had failed over the weekend like I was advising was a risk, they can say "I had no idea, the brief never got to me"

I could go on all day but it's easier if you just watch Utopia on Netflix. A great documentary

 

[burge13]

Season 2, episode 1 of Utopia

Every public servant should be forced to watch this and see if it hits home with them just how accurate it is. Recommend everyone give it a look tbh. A great insight into just how much waste, management ineptitude, pointless seminars, OHS etc. there is daily

 

[peetoo]

Season 2, episode 1 of Utopia

Every public servant should be forced to watch this and see if it hits home with them just how accurate it is. Recommend everyone give it a look tbh. A great insight into just how much waste, management ineptitude, pointless seminars, OHS etc. there is daily

When I watch utopia I laugh so hard I have to take a sickie next day in my govt job. But feel no guilt whatsoever

 

[Demonic Ascent]

The easiest place to find efficiencies inside the public service are in HR/People and Culture departments. A motza could be saved for taxpayers in that space.

And IT. And Projects. And Marketing.

 

[peetoo]

And IT. And Projects. And Marketing.

Department management who lecture staff about “silos’ but cause them anyway in mor eand more frequent restructures and out sourcing which never get long enough to realise any gains.

Short answer: CENITEX

 

[Rob R]

Defence hit for its bloated number of band 1/2/3 APS and star ranked uniform personnel, DSRs key short term impact ,- more 2 and 3 stars. People are quiting on mass, solution isn't a payrise, isn't stopping the shift of jobs to Canberra, it is a new 3 star to write a plan because one Band 3 in charge of pers isn't enough (as a comparison, the average us 3 star commands forces the size of the adf.....)

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[Mindtraveller]

And IT. And Projects. And Marketing.

I don't know where you would find efficiencies in IT staff. They're mostly outsourced now

 

[peetoo]

I don't know where you would find efficiencies in IT staff. They're mostly outsourced now

I’m in it and any task, no matter how menial, seems t need two or three times the people in email trails than say 10 years ago

As mentioned a lot of these are outsourced private firms or consultancies, so it’s shared public private wastage. One persons waste is another persons employment.

And all the while IT says we’ll be replaced by AI.

 

[The Punter]

Sounds like in IT the FTE is about right, but they're not doing the right work. Everybody with a job now does projects. Good luck getting governments to cut marketing spend - Baillieu was the last to do it and paid for it.

People in HR are just inventing work to do. I stand by my statement of where the fat is.