Annual Report 2002–03

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Management and accountability

Outlook

A major issue that will affect the management of the department in 2003–04 is the implementation of the remainder of the recommendations of the Podger review. As noted in the Clerk's review, the Houses resolved in August 2003 to fully implement the Podger review recommendations, including the amalgamation of the three joint service departments. The implications of the amalgamation for our department are:

we must ensure that the quality of services provided to our department and to members will not be affected by the amalgamation
we should consider, once the amalgamated department has settled into its role, having that department perform corporate processing functions for our department.

Significant attention will be given in the first half of the year to the negotiation of a new certified agreement. The department is committed to providing employment conditions that attract and retain staff, enable current and emerging requirements to be met and enable the department to best serve the House and the Parliament.

Maintaining the resource base of the department will be a challenge. While additional funds have been received to provide for enhanced security measures in the next four financial years, in the latter three of those years the additional funds must be offset by savings of the same amount, to be realised across the parliamentary departments. With the amalgamation of parliamentary departments, it is expected that significant savings will be achieved. However, there may be a need to find additional savings, including in our department. As the department's budgetary position is very tight, this could be difficult to achieve without adversely affecting our services.

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