Of the cost blowout to the shared services program, $7 million is for renting floor space that is not being used.
This is despite a warning from the Government's own Office Accommodation Committee about minimising the exposure to what it described as "dead rent".
In a bizarre twist, the Government will have to recoup the costs by charging its own departments more for the new service.
The Government has rented nine floors in the Westpac building in King William St and sites in Wakefield and Grenfell streets for shared services.
Up to 2000 public servants are due to be housed in the buildings but public service sources say fewer than 200 are working in the Westpac building.
Figures given to Parliament's Budget and Finance Committee show that at June 30 this year, 505 seats or desks (out of a total of 678) were still vacant in the nine floors leased in Westpac House.
The program, supposed to save the Government more than $130 million, is running behind schedule.
Under shared services, payroll, human resources and IT services run by each department are amalgamated and done by a single agency.
The program was meant to cost $60 million to implement but is now estimated to cost $97 million by 2012.
Similar blowouts introducing shared services have been encountered interstate, especially WA although the Government has said it had studied these systems to avoid their mistakes.
Details of the cost blowout have been revealed in previously unpublished evidence to the Budget and Finance Committee and extra details submitted later to the committee.
State Under-Treasurer Jim Wright said the process had "turned out to be a little more arduous and a little more complicated that we thought".
Committee chairman and Liberal MLC Rob Lucas said it was likely the final level of "dead rent" would be even higher than the Government's latest estimate given ongoing problems and delays in implementing the shared services project.
"It is now clear taxpayers will pay millions of dollars extra for the Rann Government's financial mismanagement and incompetence and the claimed savings of the shared services project will never be achieved," he said.
A spokesman for acting Treasurer John Hill said based on current activity and lease commitments, it was estimated about $2.7 million would be spent on rent by the end of the current financial year.
He said the program was on track and "the Government has no intention of rethinking its shared services initiative".
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Greg Kelton
Quelle/Source: Adelaidenow, 26.08.2008
