The ACT government has used its budget as a bulwark against federal spending cuts, pledging to maintain its staffing levels over the coming year.
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But public servants in the smaller, local bureaucracy will not be immune from cost-cutting, and face the prospect of significant workplace overhauls in later years.
The Community and Public Sector Union welcomed the budget with relief and ''open arms'' on Tuesday, comparing it with the Abbott government's ''anti-Canberra, anti-public service, hostile approach''.
Last month, the federal government's budget confirmed it planned to shed about 16,500 full-time-equivalent staff over four years. The ACT Treasury expects about 6500 of these jobs to be in this city, and many of the losses will take place over the coming 12 months.
''We anticipate over the next year alone that 2000 Canberrans could lose their jobs with the Australian Public Service and this will have flow-on effects in other areas such as retail and hospitality,'' the ACT budget papers say.
However, ACT Treasurer Andrew Barr surprisingly forecast that employment in Canberra would grow next financial year, albeit at the sluggish rate of 0.5 per cent.
The cuts to the federal bureaucracy are expected to be offset by increases in other areas of government, while employment in private businesses is also tipped to rise modestly.
The ACT Public Service's staffing levels ''won't fall below 2013-14 levels'', Mr Barr said. Rather, it will employ an extra 142 full-time-equivalent staff in the coming year.
However, as most of the new jobs will be specialist health roles, they are unlikely to help out-of-work federal public servants.
The ACT budget also contained what Mr Barr called ''difficult decisions'' that will affect local government staff: a plan to save about $12 million a year through ''administrative efficiences''.
Barely three years after former mandarin Allan Hawke's review of the ACT Public Service – which led to a substantial overhaul of the bureaucracy – the government will undertake another ''thorough review of existing directorate structures''.
These reviews will identify and eliminate waste and duplication in areas such as financial management, corporate services, human resources, grants management, regulatory oversight, recruitment processes, records management and communications functions.
The government will also spend almost $85 million to overhaul its IT systems and modernise the way it works.
''The very simple fact is that it costs us $10 for every face-to-face transaction between a Canberra citizen at an ACT government shopfront,'' Mr Barr said on Tuesday.
''If we can move that online, it will cost us about 10c for a transaction.''
The centrepiece of the push for technologically savvy government is a personalised IT system called iConnect, which the Treasurer said would ''transform the way individuals and businesses communicate and transact with government''.
The government has also set aside money for an automated automated accounts-payable system that will ''simplify and speed up payments to businesses'', and for a new IT system to help the ACT Revenue Office collect taxes more efficiently.
Community and Public Sector Union ACT secretary Vince McDevitt said that, after the steep cuts in last month federal budget, he ''welcomes this latest ACT budget with open arms''.
''It's very postiive on jobs, which is clearly the main game to our members in the ACT Public Service and in the broader Canberra community,'' he said.
''Given the federal government's anti-Canberra, anti-public service, hostile approach, it was essential that the ACT government held strong, and they have.''