Queensland government pushes on with outsourcing plan Treasurer Tim Nicholls and Premier Campbell Newman. The government plans on pushing through with its outsourcing plan, despite a scathing review of the practice from the state's Auditor-General. In a report tabled in Parliament this week, Andrew Greaves reviewed 62 contracts across three government departments which award the majority of contracts. He found the practice, as it stands, did not achieve value for money or the best solution of the best price. "As such there is a greater risk that their transition to outsourcing services under a contestability model would not achieve the desired outcomes," he concluded. Treasurer Tim Nicholls said the Auditor-General had primarily questioned whether the public service had the necessary skills to move to management role, but the government had begun a "very deliberate and planned" shift to move the public service "from being doers, to being enablers." I take the Auditor-General's report for what it says, and what it says is that unless it is well managed, it can be a problem. That is why we are building up the skills levels to make sure it happens," he said. But I will say also that it does deliver and can be shown to deliver considerable benefits as well, in terms of such things as the government printing office, which is now being done by the private sector. And no one, I would think, would suggest that the government printer was necessary in this day in age. Same with the government nursery and plant business. ..."As far as what the Auditor-General has looked at, I think he has looked backwards, that is obviously before our time. We are now looking forwards and saying how can we deliver better services for Queenslanders at a price they can pay. And contestability is a part of it. We haven't said everything will go out, we've said certain areas are reserved for the state and need to be," Mr Nicholls added, naming justice and law and order. Mr Greaves found that from the 62 contracts his office examined, 58 had been extended for the 2012-13 financial year. Of those, 41 "did not show evidence that supplier performance was monitored against objective and measurable criteria to ensure transparency for supplier performance assessments." Twenty-seven had received no monitoring at all and only 22 contained detail of regular documented meetings with suppliers. Of the 43 contracts not evaluated in detail before being renewed, 21 were worth more than $1 million. But Mr Nicholls said the government had recognised the public service was lacking the skill level to "manage those services that we are asking other people to do for us" and so was going through the process of "building those skills and buying those skills in." "It is not an easy process; we have acknowledged that in past instances it may not have been well done, but we're building that skill level up," he said. We are not rushing it, we are taking it step by step by step, to make sure we don't get it wrong. The government currently spends just under $11 billion on contracts, which includes goods and services. Following the commission of audit, the government announced departments would be open to "contestability" which Mr Nicholls said was a "process, not an outcome." Under contestability, the public service competes with the private sector to deliver goods and services. Health, community services and transport have already been earmarked as bring opened to outsourcing opportunities. Unions have vowed to continue to fight against the government's plan.