Right to Information No.: RTI202324-048

Right to Information No.: RTI202324-048

Date of Decision:          30 August 2023

Information Requested

An application made pursuant to the Right to Information Act 2009 (‘the Act’), received the Department of Health (“the public authority”) on 26 July 2023 and accepted on 27 July 2023. 

The applicant, pursuant to s15(4)(a) of the Act, agreed to grant an extension on the application for assessed disclosure.

The information requested:

1. Departmental expenditure for the financial year 2022/2023 on the following:
2. Consultants
3. Advertising
4. Travel
5. Labour Hire
6. Contractors
7. The current FTE number of:
8. Casual employees
9. Fixed term employees.

I will deal with each request separately. 

Application Fee

The prescribed application fee was waived in accordance with:

…

s16(2)(b) (the applicant is a is a Member of Parliament acting in connection with his or her official duty).

Request 1(a) – (c)

Decision

My decision is to refuse the request for information. 

Statement of Reasons

Section 12 Publicly Available Information 

Section 12 provides:

12. Information to be provided apart from Act

(3) Assessed disclosure is the method of disclosure of last resort and –

…

(c) the principal officer of a public authority or a Minister may refuse an application made in accordance with section 13 if the information that is the subject of the application –

…

(ii) will become available, in accordance with a decision that was made before receipt of the application, as a required disclosure or routine disclosure within a period of time specified by the public authority or Minister but not exceeding 12 months from the date of the application. 

Consultants, Advertising and Promotion, Travel and Transport expenditure is routinely published in the Annual Report. The information requested will be tabled in Parliament on or before 31 October 2023. The Annual Report will also be published on the public authority’s website after this date, but before 12 months from the date of the application.

Request 1(d) – (e)

Decision

I have decided to release in full the following information to you. 

Labour Hire and Contractors: $10 130 875.74

Please note: 

There are no relevant cost centres, natural accounts or projects which categorise “Contractor”, “Labour Hire”, “Labour”, or “Hire” in the General Ledger

“Contractors” has a specific definition in the Treasurer’s Instructions:

• “contractor” is a person or organisation engaged under a contract to provide specified goods or services. A contractor is not an employee. A contractor will usually work under the supervision of an Agency officer.

However, I have interpreted Labour Hire and Contractor as staff hire through an agency. There are current and former contracts within the Department of Health for Short Term Labour Hire Services.

DOH-5966 is currently in operation

The five organisations listed in contract DOH-5966 are:

• Manpower Services (Australia) Pty Ltd
• Searson Buck Group Pty Ltd
• Hays Specialist Recruitment (Australia) Pty Limited
• Programmed Skilled Workforce Limited
• Randstad Pty Limited

The below table provides the expenditure for “Labour Hire” / “Contractors”, broken down by Organisation.

Request 2 (a) and (b)

Decision

My decision is to refuse the request for information. 

Statement of Reasons

Section 12 Publicly Available Information 

Section 12 provides:

12. Information to be provided apart from Act

(3) Assessed disclosure is the method of disclosure of last resort and –

…

(c) the principal officer of a public authority or a Minister may refuse an application made in accordance with section 13 if the information that is the subject of the application –

…

(ii) will become available, in accordance with a decision that was made before receipt of the application, as a required disclosure or routine disclosure within a period of time specified by the public authority or Minister but not exceeding 12 months from the date of the application. 

The current FTE of casual and fixed term employees is routinely published in the Annual Report. The information requested will be tabled in Parliament on or before 31 October 2023. The Annual Report will also be published on the public authority’s website after this date, but before 12 months from the date of the application.