Service NSW facing massive job cuts – the contract scammers first to go we hope!
Now here’s some recent good news for small business owners still being hounded senseless by dodgy Service NSW’s concocted fake debt collecting mongrels.
Hundreds of government jobs in New South Wales are set to be slashed, in the first of several expected restructures of the state’s bloated public service.
The ‘2021 COVID-19 Micro Business Grant’ was a grant to suffering small businesses caused directly by the NSW government’s mandatory socio-economic lockdown regime 2020-2022. It was a compensatory grant. It was never a loan. This generous government compensatory grant was timely assessed, approved/else rejected, then if approved, paid out by Service NSW through 2021.
End of story! The so-called ‘audit’ two years later was not a bottom feeding clause in the agreement.
The Merriam-Webster defines the term bottom feeder as “an opportunist who seeks quick profit usually at the expense of others or from their misfortune”.
The NSW Government is Australia’s largest employer, with a headcount of 453,210 as of 2023. A tenth of people in NSW are employed in some capacity by the NSW Government. With more than 363,000 full-time equivalent employees and a wages bill of more than $40 billion, the NSW public sector is the country’s largest employer.
Service NSW, the mega department created by former NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell, has been allowed to morph under Baird, Gladys and Dom to one of the largest call centres in Australia – taking on everything from car registration and births, deaths and marriages to natural disaster emergency assistance, to even cost recovery debt collection.
Hundreds of staff are set to exit the enormous Service NSW, which is headquartered at 24 Rawson Place in Haymarket (downbtown Sydney CBD)
Service NSW is the first to undergo a major restructure that will slash its staggering headcount. It’s F.I.F.O. temporary staff are the first to face the axe, and this will include the dodgy temporary debt collection function of the internal secretive Business Bureau under fat cat Executive Director Cassandra Gibbens.
Her ring-in band of debt collectors have been immorally and unconscionably trying to claw back the previous Liberal-coalition COVID-19 Micro Business grant funding compensation from thousands of small business owners who had been legitimately assessed, approved and paid under the former Premiers Dominic Perrottet and Gladys Berejiklian successive lockdown regimes.
According to 7News media, Service NSW chief executive Greg Wells told staff in an address last week that some divisions would see headcount cut by up to 60%.
Current joint Minister for both Service NSW and NSW Customer Service, Jihad Dib MP has stated through his spokesperson:
“The Service NSW changes will predominantly impact contractors, temporary employees and staff through natural attrition, including those brought on to help with COVID-19 stimulus programs which are now completed. Many of the programs developed in response to the pandemic and natural disasters no longer require this intensive crisis support. The reduction in staff will include senior executives … final numbers will be determined in consultation with staff and unions.
Given the size of the deficit left to us by the former government, it is essential that we continue to be responsible with taxpayer money.”
About 4950 staff are currently employed by Service NSW – almost double the number just before the Covid pandemic in mid-2019. “This is not sustainable”, the spokesperson said.
It is understood that Treasurer Daniel Mookhey has flagged hundreds of staff are expected to leave as a result of the restructure.
Mookhey:
“Over the last two years of the Perrottet government, the size of the top brass of the public service swelled by more than 600. “What’s really disappointing is that last year’s explosive growth followed the previous year’s massive expansion as well.”
Mookhey says he’s shocked to discover 379 new executive jobs were created in 2022, set to cost the state budget $400 million over four years. While police and health both reduced senior ranks, the transport department added 229 positions. The number of full-time roles in the NSW public sector last year increased by 4.7 per cent compared to 2022, with an additional 17,265 people hired in just 12 months. The median salary paid is $95,984. Most small business owners would dream of paying themsevles a wage like that, replete with all the perks of public servant leave entitlements, all funded by NSW taxpayers.
Bugger their sense of entitlement!
NSW Labor had campaigned on a platform of streamlining the enormous public sector. With more than 363,000 full-time equivalent employees and a wages bill of more than $40 billion, the NSW public sector is the country’s largest employer.
News.com.au understands there is growing discontent among the Service NSW workforce over the uncertainty created by a lack of information about which roles are likely to be impacted.
References:
[1] ‘Mass job cuts begin in the NSW public sector, Australia’s biggest employer‘, 2024-07-08, by Shannon Molloy, News Corp, ^https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/at-work/mass-job-cuts-begin-in-the-nsw-public-sector-australias-biggest-employer/news-story/ba80ae1255c90c1d2717e1babbcfd0aa
[2] ‘O’Farrell Gets Under the Hood – NSW Government Changes‘, 2011, by Nicholas Tong, Public Sector Analyst, A-Z GovBiz, ^https://azgovbiz.com.au/news/65-ofarrell-gets-under-the-hood-nsw-government-changes.html
[3] ‘Super Departments‘, 2015-01-22, The Machinery of Government, ^https://medium.com/the-machinery-of-government/super-departments-7c2ae817640f
[4] ‘NSW Government Restructuring‘, A-Z Gov Biz, ^https://azgovbiz.com.au/news/76-nsw-government-restructuring.html