![Melissa Donnelly. Picture: Elesa Kurtz Melissa Donnelly. Picture: Elesa Kurtz](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/36i7SKuzkApKRqnK2hWiW9n/c3e28670-169c-4773-98bf-72c6fe0806a4.jpg/r0_181_3871_2357_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Finance Minister Simon Birmingham says the government has accepted it is more "efficient and effective" to use ongoing public service staff as it begins to expand the number of jobs in the bureaucracy.
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His comments follow decisions in the budget to grow the public service's overall staffing by more than 5000 jobs and surpass a ceiling on staffing levels it had maintained for several years.
Senator Birmingham on Wednesday said some agencies had been using large numbers of contractors for prolonged periods of time.
"The government has accepted after careful case-by-case assessments, including in some areas of new investment such as aged care and veterans, that it is more efficient and effective to use ongoing staff," he said.
Budget papers showed the government would no longer maintain public servant numbers at 2006-07 levels, but would keep portfolio-level caps on public servant numbers despite embracing larger numbers of bureaucrats on its payroll.
Senator Birmingham said projected numbers of staff across the public service remained clearly below those from any year of the Rudd and Gillard governments.
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The main public sector union said the government had admitted its public service-wide limit on staffing was broken, in growing the size of the bureaucracy in Tuesday's budget.
Community and Public Sector Union national secretary Melissa Donnelly welcomed the government's decision to expand the bureaucracy's overall staffing, and to end its public service-wide ceiling on employee numbers. But the change did not go far enough in restoring job numbers and would not repair the damage from years of cuts under the Coalition, she said.
"Over the last 12 months everyone around the country has seen just how important the public service is, so we're pleased that the government has acknowledged that staffing the Australian Public Service is important, but we think they could have gone further," Ms Donnelly said.
The government had missed an opportunity to improve its services by ending expensive and inefficient labour hire arrangements with multinational companies, she said.
Ms Donnelly criticised the government's decision to cut 800 jobs from Services Australia, saying it did not reflect the effort of staff to help Australians during the pandemic.
Labor's public service spokeswoman Katy Gallagher said job cuts at Services Australia would heap more pressure on staff and lengthen call wait times.
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