HEADS of federal government departments should earn an extra $50,000 to $100,000 on top of their $500,000-a-year salaries, the Remuneration Tribunal suggests, as the public service prepares to shake up the way it provides the government with top-level policy advice.
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The tribunal said yesterday the secretaries of major departments such as Prime Minister and Cabinet and Treasury should move to salaries ''substantially above'' their existing total annual pay of $503,220.
It will make an exact pay recommendation later in the year, but said it was ''evident'' the responsibilities of departmental heads ''extend beyond'' those in charge of other government economic agencies, many of whom are paid $545,730 and one of whom - the chairman of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority - earns $621,230 a year.
Terry Moran, the secretary of the Prime Minister's department, said he was ''fully supportive'' of the tribunal's initial findings in a review initiated by John Howard and later endorsed by Kevin Rudd.
Mr Moran yesterday unveiled a plan for public service reform that should significantly reduce the $474 million the government spent on consultancies last year, because senior public servants would be better able to do the work themselves.
He also backed an idea in the reform ''blueprint' for a very large, nationwide ''citizens' survey'' to find out what people think about federal, state and possibly even local government services.
Mr Rudd gave departmental secretaries an extra 14 per cent pay rise in 2008 to compensate for his abolition of Mr Howard's system of performance bonuses.This took the total annual remuneration for Mr Moran and the heads of Defence and Treasury to $503,220 and for other departmental heads to $470,790.
In yesterday's report, the tribunal suggested departmental secretaries receive an immediate salary ''adjustment'' with a longer-term process to take their salaries ''substantially'' higher.
It also said that the top salary tier should be expanded to include an extra five of the 19 federal department heads.
Mr Moran said he wanted to strengthen the senior levels of the public service so it could be ''more self reliant''.This would mean it needed less advice from consultancies such as Boston Consulting, McKinsey & Company and KPMG, the use of which has expanded under the Rudd government.
''There are many very capable public servants but their development had been neglected,'' he said. Some consultancies would still be needed to bring the latest private-sector methods into the public service and for ''really big problems where you need independent third-party advice''.
