Northern Territory Public Service Executive Bloat

Government documents obtained by the Opposition have revealed an increase of 36% or 136 people occupying executive level contracts with Government between June 2002 and June 2005.

Classification Jun-02 Jun-03 Jun-04 Jun-05
Exec Officer 1 88 106 137 146
Exec Officer 1C 140 146 149 160
Exec Officer 2 8 15 12 21
Exec Officer 2C 76 84 104 106
Exec Officer 3 0 1 3 3
Exec Officer 3C 28 29 31 35
Exec Officer 4C 13 17 20 21
Exec Officer 5C 11 9 8 6
Exec Officer 6C 11 13 12 13
Totals 375 420 467 511

"This doesn't paint a healthy picture in terms of how this Government does business.” Shadow Treasurer, Terry Mills said today.

"In the same period the whole public service grew from 14,402 employees to 15,850 employees or 10%. For some reason the Government has decided that it needs to add 36% in executive level managers.

"This represents an extra cost of as least $25 million to the taxpayer. While we don't deny that there is a need for management in the Public Service nothing justifies this increase.

"We have seen standards falling in the areas of Health Service delivery as well as in other service delivery in the Territory.

"The Territory Taxpayer has a right to expect bang for their buck but when the Territory has put on more executives than it has nurses then you know that there is problem.

"This Government's wages bill blew out by 12% last year and now we are getting an idea as to where that money is going.”

2006-04-20