Qld Treasury hunts ‘financial efficiencies’ figure as hiring squeeze spreads

Welcome to Brisbane Times’ Queensland public sector column, Public Circus. This week: more budgets bear down, in-house consultants get cracking, an ombudsman out the door, and more.

We’re deep into Queensland budget season and all eyes are on what is coming down the pipeline for the public sector – particularly, whether there’s likely to be any formal expansion of the Crisafulli government’s hiring freeze beyond senior bureaucrats.

While the numbers in those non-frontline ranks have been capped at June 2025 levels, one recent job ad caught Circus’ eye.

Under Treasurer Paul Williams and his department are currently on the hunt for an assistant underling for “financial efficiencies”.

The five-year gig, with a total pay package of up to $313,000, sits within the Treasury’s finance and investment group and reports to deputy under treasurer Daniel Clode.

Clode is a former senior Australian Tax Office director, who has also advised a range of former federal Liberal ministers and held senior roles in the ACT division of the party.

Recruitment material for the assistant under treasurer role (applications close on Tuesday, so be quick!) notes it will lead a team of five others.

It will also offer the chance to “shape policy, influence system-wide change and deliver sustainable efficiency outcomes across the public sector”.

“You will manage multiple professional teams to develop policies and drive strategies to achieve efficiencies in expenditure and operations across Queensland Government agencies.”

Asked whether the role is new or a vacancy being filled, a Treasury spokesperson said the department was recruiting within its current cap.

Treasurer David Janetzki was quizzed about that cap in a hometown presser up the Toowoomba range last week.

He insisted the government’s commitment in the budget last year to keep senior bureaucrat numbers below 832 until 2028 was on track.

“The SES [senior executive service] numbers are below what was forecast there, and that is a commitment that we’ll keep through to 2028,” Janetzki said.

With the hushed work already going on to manage vacancies across the sector, it’s worth noting even those at the top are having more piled on their (well-remunerated) plates.

Circus has been delivered detail of the strict new “vacancy management process” in force over at the Department of Primary Industries since earlier in the year.

There, director-general Graeme Bolton has been pulled into decision-making on hiring across his agency – now the fourth we’ve heard word from on such matters.

An illustration of the process, circulated with staff late last month before finding its way to the Circus tent, lays out the three-approval process step by step.

Hiring managers identify a role and prepare a business case package with their executive director by Tuesday afternoon. These are compiled and sent to the relevant deputy director-general, to confirm roles meet a “critical service delivery” and “funding and sustainability” need, by Thursday morning.

Anything receiving that first tick of approval gets added to a “spreadsheet register” by that afternoon, and escalated to the chief people and culture officer.

If they give the green tick, the spreadsheet then heads to the department’s corporate division deputy, Peter Le Clercq, for a third endorsement.

Things are then handed over to Bolton for final decision and approval each Monday. How’s that for efficiency?

In response to questions, a primary industries spokesperson said internal processes are updated “from time to time” to strengthen oversight, prioritise delivery and boost department sustainability.

Consider this your regular reminder we here in the Circus tent are always keen to (confidentially) hear from folks across the board about these shifting processes – or anything else for that matter.

Government’s consulting crew pulls across more Big Four people power

One plank of Crisafulli and Co’s effort to balance the budget was arresting the use of consultants and contractors across the public sector.

Progress to date has included blowing its (now no-longer spoken of) 2024-25 cap by $1 billion while its delayed Queensland Treasury Corporation-based consulting team took shape.

But there has been recent movement on the Queensland Government Consulting Services front.

After Deloitte veteran Giselle Hodgson was named inaugural managing director back in November, the calls went out for directors and executive directors earlier this year.

Some of those senior hires have now shared news of their new gigs on the professional’s social media platform of choice.

Among the new executive director faces filling out the office – according to their LinkedIn profiles – will be Lachlan Smith, Andrew Dick and James Mathews.

Smith joins from recent partner and director roles at PwC spin-off Scyne Advisory and PwC itself, after senior NRL roles including leading the feasibility study for its 17th team expansion.

Dick has jumped across after more than two decades with Deloitte and its Monitor Deloitte arm, while Mathews comes from a nearly 15-year KPMG stint – most recently as a principal director.

Corryn Barakat, another former PwC figure with a more recent history in the treasury corporation after finance roles at QUT and an ecommerce startup, has joined as a director.

All that onboarding has seen acting executive director Mark Baseley return to his usual treasury corporation role after a 12-month secondment to help set up the new team.

“With Giselle and executive at the helm, QGCS is exceptionally well placed to deliver for [the] Queensland Government,” Baseley wrote over the weekend.

Circus will certainly be watching as the rubber really starts to hit the road.

Education boss’ pointed email on cost-of-living payment bump

On the back of the latest inflation data, Circus brought news last week of the coming bump to many public servants’ pay packets to try to keep up.

​Those lucky enough to have certified agreements with the Consumer Price Index Uplift Adjustment (known as CUA) baked in, that is.

It’s a particularly sore spot for the state’s teachers – who got a cheery whole-of-department email from education director-general Sharon Schimming last week.

In it, Schimming said she was pleased to advise that the salary boost would give a “welcome benefit that supports staff and helps respond to cost of living pressures”.

She went on to list the four agreements struck in 2025 with 3 per cent year-one pay rises which will now be backdated (and back paid) to reflect the extra 0.5 per cent CUA bump.

While these cover teacher aides, cleaners and some other departmental staff, they do not include the state’s roughly 55,000 public school teachers – who form the bulk of the department’s more than 85,000-strong workforce. A point Schimming made clear.

“Please note the Department of Education State School Teachers’ Certified Agreement 2022 remains operational and does not contain a CUA provision,” she wrote.

Those public servants and their union, of course, have been locked in a now 15-month bargaining blue with the department for an agreement that nominally expired last June – and don’t have another industrial umpire arbitration date set until late August.

“Thank you again for your dedication and hard work. I know you share with me in welcoming this news. The CUA increase reinforces and recognises the valuable contribution you make,” Schimming signed off.

Ombudsman office seeks new boss

Another senior job ad has also found its way to the Circus tent: the Queensland Ombudsman.

The independent role has been held by Anthony Reilly since 2020. He could, under legislation, be reappointed up to a term of not longer than a decade.

Instead, Reilly is on the way out – questions about the reason for this, and if it was a decision by Reilly or the government, have been put to him by Circus.

The office is one of nine forming the state’s “patchwork” of integrity and accountability bodies, as the conduit for probing administrative actions of departments, councils and public authorities.

Since 2022, the role also acts as the Inspector of Detention Services responsible for promoting the human treatment of detainees and preventing their harm, and has oversight of whistleblower laws.

Not small fry. And only the second integrity agency boss role that the government has been tasked with recruiting for since the October 2024 election.

The other is Debbie Platz, whose tenure as Queensland’s Human Rights Commissioner has already been beset with criticism, both outside her office and within it. (Crime and Corruption Commission chair Bruce Barbour was also reappointed for a second three-year term in May last year.)

While Reilly’s departure date is unclear, it comes amid a regular strategic review – led by Professor John McMillan AO – of how the office is carrying out its role. The review is expected to be made public at some stage this year.

$874,000 executive departs after blunt assessment of Paradise Dam project

Sunwater, the state-run corporation in charge of Queensland’s regional water infrastructure, revealed on Monday chief executive Glenn Stockton had resigned – just days after the body told the state government to dump plans to rebuild the costly Paradise Dam.

Stockton, who was on a total salary of $874,000, ended his near-six year stint at the helm following the board’s very blunt assessment of the troubled dam south-west of Bundaberg.

In a letter, seen by Circus, from Sunwater chair (and Newman-era deputy premier) Jeff Seeney to Water Minister Ann Leahy, the proposal for a new dam wall at a cost of $4.4 billion to withstand a one-in-150-million-year flood was described as “grossly disproportionate”.

The Crisafulli government has now refused to guarantee the project will go ahead and says it’s still waiting on a business case. Whatever the outcome for the troubled dam, it’ll be without Stockton.

Seeney thanked the outgoing chief for his service and said a formal recruitment process will begin immediately. Circus attempted to contact Stockton.

Have a curiosity for the Public Circus tent? Email us on m.dennien@nine.com.au or james.hall@nine.com.au. For more security, sing out with a non-work device and network via Signal (@mattdennien.15 or this link) and mattdennien@protonmail.com.