The interim boss of the pesticides authority is fast-tracking its move to Armidale, but has refused to rule out forced redundancies for staff who cannot relocate or work remotely.
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Dr Chris Parker told a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday that 11 staff, including senior managers, said to the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority they wanted to move from Canberra early in an expressions of interest survey.
After deciding against shifting employees at one time, Dr Parker said the agency would stagger the move and send those who wanted to relocate sooner by early next year.
However the authority is yet to ask all staff if they want to move with it by mid-2019, when the relocation to Armidale is scheduled to finish, and Dr Parker said he did not know how many of his 216 employees would choose to shift north.
"I don't have a sense of the numbers at the end, I really don't," he said.
"The business model that I would like to implement would be that all the staff move to Armidale and we did the job from Armidale.
"That is not realistic for the current staff. So we then need to think about what functions are going to be where and what functions might be done by a third party or we might commission that."
Staff members who tell the pesticides authority they want to move to Armidale will have their role transferred north from Canberra, Dr Parker said.
"Where staff members do not want to move, we need to think about how we're going to manage that function in the future and there will be a range of options to manage that function," he said.
"I'm not going to settle on one option just now because that needs to remain flexible."
Staff who don't move to Armidale may be able to work remotely, and the authority wants to trial "e-working" under flexible arrangements for employees found to be suitable in Canberra before the relocation.
Dr Parker said employees who don't want to move north, and aren't suited to remote working, may opt for a voluntary redundancy.
When asked whether there would be forced redundancies, Dr Parker said he didn't want to rule anything out, but earlier said he did not consider the option to take a redundancy under the planned move as "forced".
Ninety-two staff members have been to "career sessions" giving them skills needed to find a new job.
The interim chief executive, who started in June following the resignation of Kareena Arthy, told senators the pesticides authority's performance had been volatile, and said he hoped an independent review would identify how it could better meet deadlines to approve new pesticides and veterinary medicines.
A horror run of deteriorating performance ended at the APVMA in the September quarter when it posted its first improvement in on-time crop product approvals in a year, but the crop industry says it isn't close to reaching an acceptable standard.
Close to half its work remains unfinished by agency deadlines and it is approving only a third of crop protection products within timeframes ahead of the move.
