a little history that may be pertinent to our staffing problem(s) at the academy
from the budget estimates senate hearing in
MAY 2006 (p.103 onwards), available at:
http://parlinfoweb.aph.gov.au/piweb/...ked/4719-8.PDF
(the emphasis is my own, but otherwise a straight cut & paste)
Senator O’BRIEN Can you provide us with an outline of the major restructure announced on 1 March 2006?
Mr Russell I came to this organisation in July last year. We made the announcement on the initial part working our way through that process in the meantime. We expect to have the restructure complete by June.
Senator O’BRIEN
How many staff have lost their jobs so far?
Mr Russell So far there are 58 staff who have left the organisation. About half of them are the result of voluntary redundancies. The total program, from commencement until the end of June next year, will see approximately 325 staff leave the business during that period.
They have come from areas where, as we have restructured the business and put together our human resource functions, our finance functions and some of our training areas, there is duplication in the first instance.
secondly:
Senator O’BRIEN With the restructuring of the group responsible for air traffic control training, who will now be responsible for training and where is it envisaged that these resources will be drawn from?
Mr Russell We intend to develop the training function within the organisation. We have had in place an ATC training college based at our facility in Melbourne and the college has, in our view, been in need of some restructuring with a view to making it more effective. As an indication, the amount of money that the organisation spends every year on training is in the order of $30 million, $26 million of which is largely spent on air traffic control operations training and fire service training. We think we can get better value for that money.
Our aim is to introduce some new technology into the training process and it goes to issues such as voice recognition in the training process and capital expenditure—we intend to put a new 360-degree tower simulator into the Melbourne facility; we have not had one so far. The plan is to make that organisation, I think, more cost-effective, effective and competitive so that we can sell those services to the overseas markets. There is a lot of demand for Australia’s expertise in this area. If we can get it priced appropriately, I believe there is, in conjunction with some Australian universities, potentially a good revenue stream there.
and lastly:
Senator O’BRIEN You may have told me this earlier but I did not pick it up: the 325 staff to go obviously means there are a number of iterations of the restructuring. What is the next phase?
Mr Russell We have worked through the top-level management of the business. That started with the appointment of a new general manager structure, then the people that report to those general managers, and so on. We are into finalising the fourth level of that structure, so we will fundamentally have the management team completed by the end of June. As part of the process, we conducted a voluntary redundancy program. As I mentioned, about half of the 58 people who have left us so far have come from that area. The remainder of the total number of 325 will largely come from work in our finance area.
We are looking at outsourcing some functions and a reorganisation of the training area. At this point, the 325 does not include any outcomes from the review of air traffic control. We just do not have a feel for what that review means at the moment.