Delivering job cuts to individual agencies risks a drip-feed of sackings beyond central control, fuelling weeks of rolling bad news.<\/p>\n
So it was on Tuesday, when the Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW) went public on its plans to slash 51 staff from its headcount of just 382 roles after a Treasury review that was rubber-stamped by the NSW cabinet\u2019s expenditure review committee.<\/p>\n
The bad news came through the publication of a \u2018Change Management Plan\u2019 that cited how a \u201c2024 NSW Treasury review found that the Art Gallery had not met expectations of projected revenue following the opening of Naala Badu,\u201d AGNSW said.<\/p>\n
Naala Badu is the gallery\u2019s epic, $344 million extension that opened in 2022. Counterintuitively, the extension in footprint has come at the cost of jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe review benchmarked staffing levels of other state galleries and showed that the Art Gallery has been operating at significantly higher staffing levels than comparable institutions since the completion of the Sydney Modern Project,\u201d the plan explained.<\/p>\n
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By continuing, you agree to our Terms & Conditions<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAs identified in the findings of the Art Gallery\u2019s financial governance and performance review considered by the cabinet committee on expenditure review, the increasing full-time equivalent positions and associated expenditure have contributed to the Art Gallery\u2019s budgetary pressures, along with a shortfall in the forecast commercial revenues.\u201d<\/p>\n The plan says that \u201cin order to achieve a break-even budget and spend within our government allocation and self-generated revenue, the Art Gallery must find annualised savings\u201d. Read: jobs.<\/p>\n \u201cThe minister has granted approval to proceed with the change program, as per the Agency Change Management Guidelines 2011,\u201d the change-management plan continued.<\/p>\n The NSW Public Service Association certainly isn\u2019t waving the hit through and will meet with staff today, a day after an embargo on the retrenchments was lifted by AGNSW. The bad news greeted staff arriving on Monday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe PSA is alarmed by the number of proposed job cuts within this proposal and across the wider public sector, including the current other proposal in the Cultural Institutions, which is a proposal to reduce Create NSW staffing by over 25%,\u201d the union told members in communications.<\/p>\n The PSA is now, along with AGNSW staff, working on \u201ca PSA alternative submission to ameliorate the proposed impact on PSA members\u2019 jobs. A PSA members meeting will be convened over the next seven days to consider members\u2019 concerns and feedback. A separate bulletin with meeting details will follow shortly.\u201d<\/p>\n The sackings will make life awkward for NSW Minister for Transport, plus the Arts, Music and the Night-time Economy, John Graham, who is still dealing with the fallout of sacking 950 public servants<\/a> from Transport for NSW.<\/p>\n Taking credit for new artistic projects isn\u2019t really the same if you get heckled at openings and name-checked as a job slasher at festivals.<\/p>\n