Ms ROSOL – Minister, can you outline for the committee, please, how many FTE positions in the last financial year, and this financial year to date, have been subject to recruitment freezes, targeted negotiated voluntary redundancies, any other form of redundancies, or any other vacancy management or workforce renewal initiative that’s resulted in a position being eliminated or deliberately unfilled?
Mrs ARCHER – Thank you. To address budget challenges, a strategic approach to vacancy management has been implemented to ensure that positions support the delivery of vital services. The approach also intends to improve the process, timeliness and cost of recruitment with less reliance on agency staffing.
The vacancy committee was introduced to consider all positions that are sought to be filled, and approve or deny recruitment based on information provided by the business unit. Vacancy management is not about stopping recruitment of vital health staff. At times, the vacancy committee has made decisions that fixed‑term vacancies be filled permanently, or to increase the length of contracts, or increase hours of positions to make positions more appealing to candidates and increase the likelihood of filling those positions.
I can also confirm that any positions that have a Nursing Hours per Patient Day component are exempt from the vacancy committee process. In making its decisions, vacancy committee may consider the FTE that is sought to be filled, or hours worked per fortnight, whether there’s an existing capacity within the team to otherwise fulfil the tasks of the role, and whether the position is funded or not funded.
Ms ROSOL – Just coming back to my question, which was around how many FTE positions in the last financial year and this financial year to date have been subject to those things. I asked for the specific numbers, if you have them, please.
Mr WEBSTER – Through you, minister. Each week, we look at probably 200‑odd vacancies a week. In terms of the number, since 7 to 14 March 2025, which the Premier asked us to look at, there have been 14 FTE where the vacancy management have said we won’t be filling that role, having looked at that many.
The other part of your question was around voluntary redundancies and WRIPs (Workplace Renewal Incentive Program). We had two voluntary redundancies in 2024‑25 and three workforce renewal incentive payments.
Ms ROSOL – Do you have figures on the financial year to date, because I think that first figure you gave me was over the two financial years?
Mr WEBSTER – Through you, minister. So far, this financial year to date, zero voluntary redundancies to this day and four WRIPs, or workforce renewal payments. Unfortunately, I don’t have the split of that 14, whether it was last financial year or this one. It’s a total of 14 since 7 March.
Ms ROSOL – This year?
Mr WEBSTER – That’s right.
Ms ROSOL – Is that something that you could provide on notice perhaps? The previous financial year and this one?
Mrs ARCHER – Yes, we can.
Ms ROSOL – Thank you. Just around jobs and the job cuts that we know are coming, you’ve said there will be no job cuts to central frontline workers, but what’s this defined as in relation to the Department of Health? Does it include physiotherapists and occupational therapists? What about pathologists? Medical imaging professionals? Receptionists? Admin assistants, ward aides and cleaners? What are you considering frontline within the Department of Health?
Mr WEBSTER – Through you, minister. In relation to the Department of Health, the approach we’ve taken – and we said this at last year’s Estimates – is we do it on a case‑by‑case basis, because the vast majority of our positions would be seen as frontline. We look at the impact on patient care. Using the examples you gave, pathologists have an impact on patient care, so they therefore fit the definition. I can’t remember some of your others –
Ms ROSOL – Medical imaging professionals, receptionists or admin assistants –
Mr WEBSTER – Medical imaging professionals, impact on patient care. Receptionists in our hospitals, impact on patient care.
Ms ROSOL – Ward aides and cleaners?
Mr WEBSTER – Ward aides and cleaners, they all fit the definition.
Ms HADDAD – Who doesn’t impact on patient care? Sorry to jump in on your question.
Mr WEBSTER – Secretaries? Sorry. That’s why we need to look at this on a case‑by‑case basis – sorry to answer the aside – by saying we assess the patient care impact. We’re not ruling any job in or out, we actually have to assess the impact. There will be some roles in the Department of Health and across the DHS where there wouldn’t be that impact.
Ms ROSOL – Can you name any of those here now?
Mr WEBSTER – Off the top of my head, I can’t name any of them, because we do it on a case‑by‑case basis and we have hundreds of job titles. If you use the example of job titles, I think there are 11 different names for how we name a cleaner depending on what they do in a hospital, so I could rule in a job title that then means I’m ruling someone in who has that job title that doesn’t actually apply to them so I’d be reluctant to name particular titles of jobs, but we would go through individual cases.
Ms ROSOL – I guess the converse of that is that there is no position that’s exempt from from vacancy controls because only those nursing patient hour roles are protected from it, so any job could be considered not essential at some point.
Mrs ARCHER – The vacancy committee has approved an overwhelming majority of the roles submitted for its consideration and their primary focus is on ensuring that decisions are aligned with the commitment to supporting essential work and maintaining and balancing sustainability objectives as well. It’s important to note that all nursing positions included in the nursing hours per day calculation are not part of the vacancy management process. As the secretary said, vacancies are analysed based on the information provided at that point in time and sometimes applications can be placed on hold while that additional information is sought. It’s a prudent and well established management of public resources and is considered best practice and it is important to note that since the recruitment freeze was announced in March 2025, no direct patient care FTEs have been declined and during the same period, approximately 910 new healthcare professionals have been hired by the department.
Ms ROSOL – Continuing on with the job cuts questions and going back to what we were talking about before. Minister, both you and the secretary said that there’s an exemption for the nursing hours per patient day roles from vacancy control measures. Can I confirm that for everything else, it’s on a case by case basis and no other roles are exempt by rules? For example, if there was a physiotherapist role that might be approved to be filled by the Vacancy Control Committee, there’s no rule saying it must be?
Mrs ARCHER – I will ask the secretary if you want to make any further comments, but that is directly the answer that I gave you earlier that they are being determined on a case by case basis, with regard to a range of considerations, but we have seen increases in the health workforce in that time period.
Mr WEBSTER – Each one is done on a case by case basis. I can provide some examples of the role of vacancy management. For instance, we have a number of rules around how we contract registrars who are doing a training program. In the past we’ve employed them on a year by year basis and they’ve had to reapply every year. We’ve changed that process to a to a ‘length of training’ contract and it’s taken us a while to get everyone to accept that we’re no longer employing them on a 12-month basis. Part of vacancy management has been to say to the network that these are registrars, they should be employed on a length of training contract. The reason we called it a ‘length of training contract’ is that registrars can vary from four years to six years. In addition to that, that actually allows – if during that period they need to take leave for parental leave and those sorts of things – the contract continues through that period as well. We look at it from that point of view.
In terms of allied health professionals, we also look at in terms of have we got the career structure because nursing hours per patient day actually determines almost a career structure for nurses because it says how many of each category you need on the floor. That isn’t a case [inaudible] allied health professional. Again, we look at the career structure. Do we have the right number of graduate one/twos coming through so that we’ve got a future workforce? Or are we just going out and advertising for level threes and fours and constantly doing that. There’s more to vacancy management than analysing, ‘Is this job a patient facing job and therefore should be approved.’ It’s about us actually saying, ‘Does this create the right structure for that part of the agency? Does it follow the other rules that we’ve created around length of contract and those sorts of things?’ There are a number of factors to vacancy management. It’s not just about determining which job is advertised or not, but making sure the network is advertised and filled in a way that’s actually sustainable.
Ms ROSOL – Thank you for that. I think what you’ve confirmed is there’s no protections for any positions except for nursing hours per patient day positions.
