Research reveals extent of outsourcing Australian Public Service jobs

The federal government has been spending more than $5 billion a year on labour-hire and consultants, new analysis has found.

The research conducted by the ABC looked at roughly 120,000 federal government contracts for services including consulting, staffing and recruitment. It has estimated that the federal government’s market for private labour has doubled in the past five years.

The Department of Defence, the Australian Taxation Office, and Services Australia have spent the most on contractors, while companies such as Manpower, computer science vs computer engineering have been awarded the most, the ABC has found.

Meanwhile, documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws have revealed that some major federal departments have been outsourcing thousands of non-IT public service roles, including senior positions.

A senate committee earlier this year noted that the federal government’s controversial average staffing level cap has led APS agencies to use more contract labour, costing tax-payers more in the long run. The committee called for the ASL cap to be abolished, arguing that “outsourcing government services is an activity fraught with risk”.

In its submission to that senate inquiry, Services Australia argued that outsourcing employees had been a “cost-effective” way to deliver services within the limitations of the staff cap.

“Additional resources are sometimes required to deliver on government priorities or to progress initiatives to transform and modernise our technology and capability. Employing non-APS staff provides timely access to the people needed for specific and often time-limited priorities … where we are already operating at our ASL limit, it is important to be able to access non-APS resources to make sure we have the capacity to deliver on all of the government’s priorities,” it said.