The federal minister who oversees the public service is concerned it now employs fewer trainees and graduates than when Labor won office.
Liberal senator Scott Ryan asked the Government yesterday why it hired fewer junior staff while the bureaucracy was “bloating at the top end”.
The ranks of senior executives grew almost 13 per cent from July 2007 to July last year, while the bureaucracy’s overall size increased by about 1 per cent.
But the number of trainees plunged by more than 40 per cent in the same period to 257 last year, and the number of graduates fell 10 per cent to 1114.
Senator Ryan told a Senate estimate hearing yesterday the figures defied Labor Leader Kevin Rudd’s pledge on the eve of the 2007 election to divert resources from the senior executive service to “front-line” public servants.
Cabinet Secretary Joe Ludwig agreed the decline in graduates was disappointing. “It is a concern to me that those graduate numbers, if they’re accurate, are dropping off.”
He said an inquiry into the future of the public service, headed by Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Terry Moran, was investigating the issue and would report soon.
Senator Ryan asked why the Government was employing more top- level bureaucrats earning “double the average weekly wage or more”.
The median salary of a band-1 senior executive in 2008 was $196,880, including superannuation and a car, while the median pay package for a departmental head was $457,080.
But Senator Ludwig said the Government had no overarching control of recruitment, saying each agency was responsible for its staff structure.
He said past State of the Service reports attributed the growing need for senior staff to increasingly complex work, new technologies and demands from ministers.