Public servants have been told to meet less, work harder and respond to the public more quickly

Almost 100,000 South Australian public servants have been issued with an edict to have less meetings, work harder and answer letters within a month.

Public servants have been told to lift their game and stop hosting unnecessary meetings. Picture: iStock

THE state’s 100,000 public servants have been told to lift their game, with a directive order­ing the elimination of “unnecessary” and “inefficient” meetings and a demand to respond to letters from the public within a month.

The head of the public service, Don Russell, this week issued a directive titled “Public Sector Responsiveness” urging workers to “only have meetings when it is necessary, to ensure the right people are in attendance, and the meeting has a clear purpose and outcome”.

It also insists on correspondence from the public being answered within one month, and a crackdown on overspending on highly paid external lawyers. “It may be appropriate to seek legal advice on legal issues, but seeking legal advice on matters of (your own government) policy may not be ­required,” it says.

External legal consultancies may be required when there is a lack of skills in the department or when there is a conflict of interest, the policy says.

Defending the one-month turnaround for letters, a spokesman for Mr Russell said many would be answered sooner.

“This is a maximum time and it is expected that agencies process straightforward matters much faster, but correspondence relating to complex matters which may involve multiple agencies may take longer to return,” the spokesman said.

With 99,385 full and part-time workers, South Australia has more public servants per head of population than any other state.

Property Council director Daniel Gannon said the public service worked as a handbrake on business when it did not work efficiently.

“The fact that a policy about eliminating unnecessary and inefficient meetings has to be spelled out and disseminated is concerning,” he said.

“It suggests that employee productivity is low, or not as high as taxpayers expect it to be.” Mr Gannon said currently it took about one month for the public service even to acknowledge it had received a letter, “let alone a substantive response’’.

“We respond to our members and their concerns within one to two days,” he said.

Phil Sutherland, CEO of the Civil Contractors Federation SA, the state’s peak commercial construction advocacy group, said that “any attempt to improve the situation is to be applauded” and “stories of poor customer service from public servants are rife”. “The fact that the public service in South Australia is larger per capita than any other state in Australia raises a number of questions,” he said.

Mr Sutherland said “public service has become an elite class of worker” in SA.

“Many public servants have jobs for life with no forced redundancy provisions in their employment agreements,” he said. “Public service wages now are well ahead of the private sector equivalents.”