Vale: Aboriginal Justice Advisory Council

The Attorney General's Department is touted by its senior executives as an efficient organisation. In recent times many "efficiencies" have been "optimised", which is just turgid management speak: we are cutting jobs and trimming the fat to save money.

So there is a Savings Implementation Plan to achieve savings which includes various measures of which just three can be named in passing:

* consolidating various employee functions previously handled in individual agencies (like IT, human resources, payroll, finance, asset management) and handing them over to the Parramatta Justice Precinct where highly stressed, over-worked and under-resourced individuals try to implement "shared corporate services".

* reducing the hiring of agency contractors

* cutting out overtime and squeezing back on Higher Duties Allowances

Another example of trimming the fat (apparently) is the abolition of the Aboriginal Justice Advisory Council (AJAC). It was created in 1993 of members of the Aboriginal community who could advise the NSW Government on law and justice problems.

AJAC received funding from the Attorney General's Department, Department of Juvenile Justice, NSW police and Corrective Services. AJAC fulfilled its charter on various fronts such as highlighting the plight of Aboriginal women in prison (Speak Out Speak Strong report of 2002).

AJAC ceased to be at the end of the 2008 financial year. Adieu to the staff who worked in it.
There you have it instant "savings" because there are now fewer salaries to pay and there is one less body to administer/fund.

Another fine example of pretending the department is efficient by creating on paper the illusion that funds have been saved. Pity the same degree of diligence is lacking when one notes the top-heavy bureaucracy of the Department, the generous allowances paid to give tax-breaks to some SES persons earning in excess of $300,000 p.a., and the extravagant expenditure applied in the services of external consultants to tell the Department the blindingly obvious.