{"id":325902,"date":"2025-12-03T22:52:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T22:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/325902\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T22:52:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T22:52:08","slug":"victorian-government-to-cut-1000-public-sector-jobs-following-silver-cost-cutting-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/325902\/","title":{"rendered":"Victorian government to cut 1,000 public sector jobs following Silver cost-cutting report"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 1,000 public service jobs will be slashed under a cost-cutting plan intended to save billions of dollars unveiled by the Victorian Government.<\/p>\n

Treasurer Jaclyn Symes today publicly released the final report from Helen Silver \u2014 the top bureaucrat tasked with streamlining Victoria’s public sector by identifying inefficiencies and consolidating government entities \u2014 as well as her government’s response.<\/p>\n

About 330 senior executive and technical specialist roles will be cut, at a saving of $359 million over the next four years, while reducing spending on consultants is estimated to save $113 million.<\/p>\n

It comes as the government seeks to rein in employee costs, which have ballooned from $18.8 billion in 2014-2015 to an estimated $38 billion in 2024-2025.<\/p>\n

Firing higher-level public service staff, known as VPS5 and VPS6, is expected to net savings of $125 million over the four-year estimates period.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The government estimates more than 1,000 public sector roles will be cut \u2014 a figure well short of the 2,000 to 3,000 jobs Ms Symes flagged when she commissioned the Silver review in February<\/a>.<\/p>\n

About 315,000 full-time equivalent staff were employed in the overall public sector as at June 2024, according to the state government, or about 10 per cent of the state’s labour force.<\/p>\n

Cuts fall short of report’s recommendations<\/p>\n

The review itself, finalised and handed to the treasurer in June, recommended slashing 2,000 jobs.<\/p>\n

In May, the treasurer also foreshadowed that cuts would focus on the state’s public entities and boards, which cost $35 billion every year.<\/p>\n

“Victoria has over 500 entities and 3,400 boards and public committees, so you can’t tell me there’s not some fat to cut there,” Ms Symes said in her May budget speech.<\/p>\n

Today’s cuts announcement will see the number of public entities reduce by 29 \u2014 far fewer than the 78 recommended in the review.<\/p>\n

The Silver review estimated reducing the number of public entities by 78 would save $427 million over four years. The government initially claimed it would save the same amount, despite slashing 49 fewer than recommended, but later admitted those savings would only amount to $27 million.<\/p>\n

Under the changes, the government also says it will halve the number of business regulators by 2030.<\/p>\n

The establishment of a new regulator called Safe Food Victoria will combine separate food safety regulators for dairy and meat.<\/p>\n

Premier announces cost-cutting review<\/a><\/p>\n

Premier Jacinta Allan announces a review of public sector spending that could see up to 3,000 public sector workers made redundant.<\/p>\n

The Victorian Legal Services Board will be merged with the Legal Admissions Board, while HealthShare Victoria and VicHealth \u2014 responsible for healthcare procurement and health promotion respectively \u2014 will be absorbed into the Department of Health.<\/p>\n

The review made 52 recommendations. The government accepted 27 in full, three in part and 15 in principle.<\/p>\n

It rejected seven recommendations, including a proposal that the government pause building more early learning and childcare centres beyond those already operating or under construction, as well as cut funding for musical instruments in secondary schools.<\/p>\n

The government also declined to merge the state’s retail water authorities, despite recent bungles with Greater Western Water’s billing system, noting “the different needs and infrastructure requirements of local communities”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 1,000 public service jobs will be slashed under a cost-cutting plan intended to save billions of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,3786,16287,45450,44,271,182967],"class_list":{"0":"post-325902","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-government","11":"tag-jacinta-allan","12":"tag-job-cuts","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-public-sector","15":"tag-repport"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}