Bob McMullan (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance) Share this | Hansard source

I am not sure I can answer all of those in the time available. I will start, but the member might need to come back and remind me of a couple and I will also try to respond to those. There is a complicated answer to the question about the staffing tables. It is important—and everybody but the member for Goldstein and I will die of boredom with this discussion—and he has raised a point which needs to be pursued in some detail. We have a situation where the 2007-08 and the 2008-09 ASL tables cannot be reconciled because the methodologies are so different. Going forward every year, they will be capable of being reconciled because the new methodology will remain, so you will be able to make that assessment. Until 2008-09 there was an estimate based on what is called the activity based costing model, which was developed back in 1999, that attributed ASL to outcomes apportioned in the same manner as budget allocations. This was developed to enable the department to implement what was then a new financial framework and what operates as the outcome-output reporting model in the budget papers.

The model determined at that time that the department’s resources should be allocated to outcomes 1, 2 and 3 according to a 70:20:10 ratio. In subsequent years, PBS reporting annual adjustments to ASL were made to take account of any additional funding or resources received externally or through internal departmental adjustments. The effect has been that over time the picture that is painted is somewhat distorted and ASL, as reported in the PBS, progressively represented a less accurate picture. As a result, the department instituted a new allocation methodology for ASL for the 2008-09 PBS and, as we have discussed, this is noted in the footnote to each of the four outcomes and resourcing tables. The bottom line is that comparisons between 2007-08 ASL and 2008-09 ASL are not valid because the methodologies are so different. The intention is that this will be an accurate attribution and a solid basis for comparison in the years going forward, but this is an initiative that has not just been taken in the last short while. In 2007 there was an internal survey of the output of all Canberra work units which assessed the proportion of ASL allocated to each outcome in each division, and the proportion per division was total to that service as the basis for ASL by outcome. So it is an initiative that goes back to 2007.

We do think it is a more up-to-date estimate. It uses the current data and for Canberra staff is calculated per division rather than over the entire department. Similar things were done with regard to posts; locally engaged staff were surveyed separately. There was an arduous and expensive exercise to set up the 1999-2000 model. It has been consistent, but, after 10 years, it just was not painting an accurate picture. I understand the frustration of the member for Goldstein; I would similarly have found it frustrating in his position in the past. He will understand that I have not actually been inside the department examining this methodology, but I am reliably advised that we cannot make that comparison this year. There is not a way that we can reconcile the two tables; the methodology is too different. I did ask if there was some way I could provide a reconciliation, but it is not possible, so I have to make that point to the member for Goldstein.

The arrangements with regard to the special envoy and with regard to Mr Evans have not been finalised. They will be, and we will make them public at that time. They are matters under discussion between PM&C and DFAT. When they are finalised, we will make them public.

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