I put this up last week from Senate Estimates of the 20th Of February:
----- Begin Extract.
Senator WATT: So there are about 140 or so in each. Do you often have all-staff meetings?
Mr Kelsey : Actually, we haven't had an all-staff meeting since the agency started. We have all-staff virtual meetings, as you would expect we'd do as a digital agency. We do have office based meetings, but we are concerned about the costs of bringing staff together, so, at this point, we have not had an all-staff briefing. I'm just mindful of the public—the taxpayer—interest.
Senator WATT: Sure. But you have had virtual all-staff meetings, like videoconferencing.
Mr Kelsey : We have those quite regularly.
Ms McMahon : Regularly.
Senator WATT: Are you planning an all-staff meeting for 15 and 16 May?
Mr Kelsey : There've been conversations about that in order, basically, to provide people with more insight. Something that the staff have been telling us is that they want to understand more about the nature of the work plan for the whole agency and to be able to connect their roles to that broader work plan, but also, crucially, to provide training and security, and in other areas, which would be much cheaper for us to do if we brought people together. That's currently under consideration and a decision has not been made as to whether we proceed with that.
Senator WATT: That training and security, is that workplace-health-and-safety-type training?
Mr Kelsey : That kind of thing, yes?
Senator WATT: And appropriate workplace behaviour—that kind of thing?
Mr Kelsey : Yes.
Senator WATT: Why couldn't that be delivered in a virtual manner?
Mr Kelsey : That's exactly the review that's happening at the moment.
Senator WATT: That's exactly?
Mr Kelsey : That's what we're reviewing at the moment—whether we can deliver that training virtually and effectively, or whether it is actually going to be cheaper for us to do that by bringing people together. I'm very happy to share the data on the budgets, when we've compared them, with the committee.
Senator WATT: Would this all-staff meeting include the contractors as well as the directly employed staff?
Mr Kelsey : It would, yes.
Senator WATT: So it would be about 424 people, roughly.
Mr Kelsey : Yes.
Senator WATT: And where would that be held?
Mr Kelsey : Again, we haven't made any decision to go ahead with this meeting yet. It entirely depends on the relative costs of the training budget. That's where we've got to with it.
Senator WATT: So there's been no decision about Canberra, Brisbane, Sydney or somewhere else?
Mr Kelsey : I know that colleagues have looked, I think, at the Hellenic centre, which is next to the Department of Health headquarters in Woden, but no final decision has been made and no final budget has been developed.
Senator WATT: So no venue has been booked?
Mr Kelsey : Not as far as I know.
----- End Extract.
Here is the link:
It had seemed at the time pretty clear Senator Watt had a little sniff of some fun information.
All became clear when this appeared:
The agency in charge of the My Health Record had planned a $100,000 training event at the SCG
Sue Dunlevy, National Health Reporter, News Corp Australia Network
March 1, 2019 12:00am
Exclusive: Taxpayers were to foot a $100,000 bill for an extravagant get together for staff at the agency in charge of the controversial My Health Record.
The event at the Sydney Cricket Ground scheduled for May was intended to bring the Australian Digital Health Agency’s (ADHA) 424 staff together for a very expensive face-to-face occupational health and safety briefing.
News Corp has confirmed that the ADHA made a tentative booking at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
However, the agency says the SCG was ruled out as the venue on February 4 and “the SCG was notified of the decision not use their venue on 5 February”.
This is even though News Corp has seen an email from ADHA CEO Tim Kelsey to all staff sent on February 11 where he asks them to “save the date for an all staff meeting to be held in Sydney”.
The agency says this was because at the time, other face-to-face meeting options in Sydney were being considered, including the Agency’s office on Liverpool St. “This is no longer the case.”
The ADHA told News Corp yesterday “the staff meeting will proceed in office locations where staff are based to ensure value for money”.
Leaked documents seen by News Corp show the ADHA picked the SCG ahead of other Sydney venues for the event, despite the majority of staff working interstate.
Enthusiastic briefings prepared for ADHA CEO Tim Kelsey said the function would involve the use of the ground’s scoreboard and field lights to create a “spectacular ambience” for the meeting, audio visual, front of house staff signage and an hour of canapes.
In addition 300 staff from Canberra and Brisbane would be flown to the event and put up at hotels costing $185 a night.
ADHA chief Tim Kelsey tried to deflect questioning about the event at last week’s Senate estimates committee suggesting and the event could be held online or at the Hellenic Club in Canberra near the ADHA’s Canberra headquarters.
----- Lots omitted
PROPOSED RUNNING SHEET FOR ADHA CONFERENCE AT SYDNEY CRICKET GROUND
DAY 1
*12pm-1pm direct bus route from City Liverpool St offices
*2pm afternoon tea at venue
*2-5pm conference
*5-7pm optional tours of the SCG ($22 per person)
*5-7pm canapes (complimentary for 1 hour) and drinks (supplied by senior management) staff allowed around the field to get to the dinner venue, stadium lights will be on
*7-10pm dinner, staff awards, cash bar for drinks
*9.45pm shuttle buses to hotel
Day 2
*8-9am option to tour the cricket ground, breakfast supplied
*9-2pm conference, team activity, lunch
*2pm shuttle buses to airport
Draft agenda items to be workshopped
Here is the link:
Now of you believe the plan was for a Health and Safety Briefing I want some of what you have been smoking.
Great job by Sue Dunlevy in following up and bringing all the gory details to our attention.
The ADHA are hardly a responsible custodian of public money on the performance. The ANAO should take a look!
David.
18 comments:
God forbid a government agency make any attempt to support its staff and try and build a cohesive organisation. This story is absolutely rotten and means any attempt to build up the team in the future will not happen for fear of media finding out - and if anywhere needs to do that it is this place. Private companies spend money to recruit and retain the best and to build good culture - as modern HR practices dictate - invest in your people. Like the ADHA or not, this is nasty and is why you get risk averse government and why innovation is frowned upon.
Well yes you are partly correct, but tell me what does the SCG, the minister and Tim’s great mate from the UK have to do with WHS. As someone who works at ADHA I can tell you this is a load of bollocks as is actually a response to Tim wanting to celebrate his success in migrating as many souls as possible into the MHR.
Why they don’t just come out and say the truth is a constant puzzlement
because with the ADHA the truth is embarrassing.
And we would not want the truth making the IT system vulnerable
$100,000 for a 1-2 day hire of a venue seems excessive. If there are only 450 people attending it is difficult to see why the SCG was even considered as a possible option. If there were 4,500 attendees, the SCG might be appropriate; it certainly would be if there were 45,000 people attending but that would probably require someone with rock star status as the guest of honour drawcard!
$100,000 for 450 people equates to $200 per person for the venue. However, that doesn't include estimates for travel, accommodation and individual expenses which should also be part of the budget. The overall budget is probably closer to $500,000 and under the circumstances that is more than excessive!
A 5-star hotel like Sofitel Darling Harbour would be a far more suitable venue, but perhaps all such venues are unavailable in May. On the other hand, one has to ask why the nation's leading Digital Health Agency doesn't take the opportunity to demonstrate it prowess and leadership by setting an example and convening a video-tele-conference between the three locations of Brisbane, Canberra and Sydney.
That is simple Ian. It is a running joke that anytime Tim goes near web conferencing it fall-over.
The SCG has function rooms, you don't hire the whole thing.
"The SCG has function rooms" ... which make it very difficult to "use of the ground’s scoreboard and field lights to create a “spectacular ambience” for the meeting, audio visual, front of house staff signage" as Tim Kelsey said the function would involve.
March 06, 2019 5:29 PM, the private sector operates under different conditions. The ADHA is funded through tax revenue. That aside, if nothing else the APSis a well crafted machine and very predicatable. This is a common pattern and my money is that Tim has been thanked for his service and deserves a chance to spend some time with friends and families and seek new opportunities.
His value has been spent and as such is to be cast to the four winds. Nothing to weep about that is the life-cycle of a CEO, the trouble is he should never have been a CEO and the department in its misguided stubbornness has weakened its influence
This gives a deep insight into Tim Kelsey's uncontrolled ego when he said the function would involve .... "use of the ground’s scoreboard and field lights to create a “spectacular ambience” for the meeting".
Well all I can say is it's just not cricket...
Unless, perhaps they can all go dressed as Richies - see http://www.therichies.com.au
Mr Kelsey : Actually, we haven't had an all-staff meeting since the agency started. We have all-staff virtual meetings, as you would expect we'd do as a digital agency.
- yeah Senator, what cave have you been living in at your backwater constituency?
What a patronising hit this Mr Kelsey is, now wonder staff have left in droves and those remaining see it a duty to leak documents. I am sure he might find our governance systems funny but we as a nation do not.
@ 8:55 AM "staff have left in droves" ...
I am concerned by this statement and similar claims made on this blog in the past. It doesn't seem to make sense. It sounds like a beat-up to say 'left in droves'. It is not possible to keep replacing the 'droves' with new staff to maintain a consistent headcount.
This leads me to quite reasonably ask:
1. What is the ADHA Organisation Structure?,
2. What roles do the 450 staff fill in each of the 3 offices -Sydney, Canberra & Brisbane (distributed equally at 150 per office)?
There is a paucity of information available about this leading to lack of transparency across such an important taxpayer-funded national health initiative.
At Senate Estimates Mr Kelsey said:
Senator WATT: Sure. How many staff members does the Digital Health Agency have?
Ms McMahon : We do have that figure to hand.
Mr Kelsey : Whilst we're waiting, I'll just say that we have an average staffing level cap of 250, so that's the maximum average staffing level we can employ as permanent staff. In addition, we have a number of contractor staff, and we will get you the total number of that now.
Senator WATT: So you've got roughly 250 direct employees?
Mr Kelsey : Yes, on average.
Senator WATT: On average? Is that month to month? While you are looking, those—
Mr Kelsey : Sorry; I can give you the data. The average staffing level cap is 250. At the point in time this report was compiled, the agency headcount, excluding contractors, was 226: 204 full-time employees and 21 part-time employees. Of the 226 employees, 47 are APS employees and 179 are non-APS.
Senator WATT: Does that mean they're contractors?
Mr Kelsey : No, they're staff within the cap. The number of contractors was 198.
Senator WATT: Wow! So nearly half your staff are contractors.
Mr Kelsey : Yes.
Senator WATT: Okay. So you've got about 226 direct employees?
Mr Kelsey : Correct.
Senator WATT: When was that?
Mr Kelsey : That was at the end of December.
Senator WATT: And then about 198 contractors at around the same time?
Mr Kelsey : Which obviously is a more variable number, but yes.
Ms McMahon : Yes.
Senator WATT: Okay. So there are about 424 all up, between contractors and direct?
Mr Kelsey : Yes.
Even his claim of "virtual all staff meetings" is stretching the reality a bit. Each office is connected via VC units and is pretty much a web cast type situation where you sit and listen. Staff are asked for questions, however during my stay at that place questions had to be submitted and where vetted by senior staff. So yes there was some IT enabled connectivity between offices but hardly bleeding edge stuff.
Out of 450 staff, 47 are APS employees.
It's no wonder it doesn't know how to operate as a Federal government agency.
And you have to wonder about those 47. ADHA isn't exactly where all the action is. Maybe many (most?) were transferred from the Department of Health and had little chocse in the matter. And would Health have let the good one's go?
Questions, so many question, so few answers.
10:44 AM & 11:49 AM The Auditor-General should include this in the ANAO Audit.
The Audit would be a useless exercise in futility if the ANAO was constrained in what it could or could not audit. The ANAO needs to have free reign to audit anything it wants in order to get a true and accurate picture of the ADHA, its strengths and weaknesses and the My Health Record project.
Out of 450 staff, 47 are APS employees.
It's no wonder it doesn't know how to operate as a Federal government agency.
Come on, get real. The ADHA is part of the gig economy. If 400 odd people are non-APS, it probably means they are non-permanent and can be let go at a moment's notice. It's the modern way, everyone is free to stay or move on at will. The ADHA can terminate employment at any time and nobody has any loyalty or even a clue what's going on. That's why they have such pathetic virtual meetings. It's virtually a meeting, but not quite. And why My Health Record is a mess.
It might even be part of a diabolical plan by the DOH to kill the thing with minimal fall out to themselves. They won't have to go the the trouble of making 450 people redundant. 47 is an easy number to reabsorb.
If I was working at ADHA, I'd be scanning the job boards so I can go when I want to, not when the place is closed down in disgrace.
The ANAO website says:
"The ANAO does not have a role in commenting on the merits of government policy but focuses on assessing the efficient and effective implementation of government programs, including the achievement of their intended benefits."
I read that as they cannot examine "what" the government is trying to achieve but they can look at "how".
They can probably even ask questions such as "why was the ADHA created in the first place?" "How and why was Tim appointed?". It won't just be ADHA that's potentially in scope, it can go all the way up to the Ministers, past and present. You know, the likes of Tony Abbott, Peter Dutton and Sussan Ley.
Constitutionally it's the minister who is responsible, not the government as a whole or even the PM.
If Tim thinks he knows how Australian constitutional democracy works, he's almost certainly wrong. Has he got anybody in his agency who can inform him?
Post a Comment