Quote Of The Year

Timeless Quotes - Sadly The Late Paul Shetler - "Its not Your Health Record it's a Government Record Of Your Health Information"

or

H. L. Mencken - "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

Sunday, December 08, 2019

What Do You Reckon Could Be Coming For The ADHA In Coming Weeks?

As reported in the last few days there has been a huge shake-out and purge of the Australian Public Service (APS) in the last few days.
Here is the start of the Australian’s reporting:

Get lean: Scott Morrison wields the axe on bureaucracy

Five Mandarins have been axed in a move to implement a "lean and mean" bureaucracy.
December 6, 2019

Scott Morrison has ordered the biggest shake-up of the public ­service in more than 30 years, axing four departments and five mandarins in a move to ­implement a “lean and mean”­­ ­bureaucracy.

Delivering on a pledge to cut red tape and streamline government services, the Prime Minister will cut the number of departments from 18 to 14 as of February 1 to “bust bureaucratic congestion”.

Mr Morrison, who is also Minister for the Public Service, said Australians should be able to ­access “simple and reliable ser­vices, designed around their needs”.

The creation of four super departments is the most significant restructure of the public service since Bob Hawke reduced the number of departments from 28 to 18 and abolished the public service board soon after the 1987 election.

Ahead of Mr Morrison releasing his response to David Thodey’s review of the public service next week, The Australian understands government agencies and boards, estimated to number more than 180, will be next in the firing line.

There is a great deal more here:

It seems pretty clear that plans for this have been underway for a while and that there is much more in the works!
This from the OZ daily email says it all.

“The next step is the agencies … there are more government agencies than there are countries in the UN.”

SENIOR GOVERNMENT SOURCE”
So what might this mean for the Agency that brought all that political pain to Minister Hunt with the mess that became the ‘opt-out’ transition which was repeatedly delayed due to public outrage and has left more than 2.5million annoyed voters?
Is there a clue that Renee Leon – Secretary for Services Australia (the old DHS) was one of the casualties?
What follows has to be pure speculation but given the new Department already operates the #myHealthRecord all that would need to remain of the ADHA would be a small policy advisory unit in the new Department Of Social Services for Digital Health. I guess it is also possible that they could otherwise be merged into the Department of Health.
It is hard to see how this would not be very cost effective and suitable payback for the ‘opt-out’ stuff up. These pollies seem to have long memories and seem to play a pretty vengeful calculated game.
What do you think?
David.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The move to opt-out has been achieved. The ADHA doesn't really have the skills to drive a technology agenda. My Health Record only needs to be operated now - everyone will flock to it. There's quite a good argument to abolish the ADHA. Tim might see it as a good time to go -just in case the brown stuff hits the fan with a data breach.

Or the government decides My Health Record is not fit for purpose and the ADHA needs to redevelop it.

It's all silly season speculation - just before Christmas. Some people will get the chop, others will have a worrying break.