Estimates - Housing and Planning - State Planning Office Funding
Ms Burnet - Minister, I have a question around the State Planning Office and the funding. It's been a significant frustration for me, and I'm sure many planners for many years, as to the less-than-adequate funding of the State Planning Office to perform its strategic and policy functions. In the Budget, the State Planning Office funding drops even more, from $2.20 million in 2025-26 to $1.49 million in 2026-27 and then a further drop to $850,000 in 2027-28, which is one third of that initial funding. How will the government complete the significant planning reform program underway and further work required to resolve the well-documented remaining issues with our planning system with such a savage cut in the State Planning Office?
Mr VINCENT - Some of that cutback in the first year is in relation to some projects that have actually finished. I will ask the assistant secretary there in regard to the reflection of the machinery changes there to explain that please to the committee.
Mr GREGORY - The operational efficiencies that have been applied to the Department of State Growth related to the machinery government change, but machinery of government change was announced in the middle of the Budget preparation. The operational efficiencies have been provisionally allocated to portfolios. We don't expect that that will necessarily be where the operational efficiencies do come from. We're working through a number of things that we were doing anyway around reducing leasing footprints, some general improvements around use of technology and so on, which we've captured in the budget papers. But the broader operational efficiency that will come from the establishment of Building Tasmania and the machinery government changes have really got to be worked throughout the next 6 to 12 months.
What we are saying is the operational efficiencies in the budget papers have to be allocated against outputs. They are provisional and I would expect that some of those will change as we work our way through, and we'll see operational efficiencies delivered through other mechanisms along the way. That is where we sit at the moment in terms of knowing exactly where those operational efficiencies will come from.
Ms Burnet - It's pretty fundamental to have a robust planning advice mechanism from the State Planning Office. I'm wondering, minister, how this reduction compares to other states and jurisdictions? They must have bigger planning offices. How do you compare?
Mr VINCENT - Correct. I'm not sure exactly, but I will ask Sean for a bit more advice on that. Some of the other state planning officers I know have a lot of other roles that are incorporated into the State Planning Office as well. Sean and I have had several robust discussions about making sure the staffing is right. I have continued to have discussions with Mr Gregory as well, about making sure we get that balance right in there. They have been operating a few short of what they should have been for various staffing reasons, so Sean is fully aware that I would like to see that in a much more balanced position so we can deliver because one of the frustrations coming from the world of local government was a lot of the work we've been doing wasn't going anywhere. Certainly, I don't think it's wrong in saying a lot of pressure came to bear to get some of the planning things looked at and done and that'll continue to happen.
I might ask Sean for a bit more clarification on where we sit with other regions and also where he feels comfortable with his staffing numbers at the moment.
Mr McPHAIL - I don't have any particular details on how we compare with other jurisdictions. In terms of other jurisdictions, there are a lot that have departments that have broader roles and link in with other parts of planning related things, like infrastructure and things. I think that's where the State Planning Office (SPO) in shifting over to state growth initially and then coming into Building Tasmania is part of that work to bring all those things into connection, into synergy, so I think there are a lot of efficiencies and things that can work in that space.
In terms of the SPOs operating, there's always a need for more and there's always an interest for more in terms of improvements in the planning system. The team that we have is a highly specialised team that has worked very well over a number of years, but we'd obviously like to see how we can better integrate into and work with the new Building Tasmania structures so that we can continue the reforms that we have to complete, but also get on with making sure that the system that we have operating works well and that we all get better and we can collaborate across local government as well. That's the key thing; so much of planning is across that jurisdiction that we need to work together to make things come together as they need.
Mr VINCENT - I might just add that we've been talking to quite a few of the local government planners in different areas around the state to understand some of their frustrations as well as builders and everybody else. This has painted a picture for us, along with my own quite open frustrations, with all the bits of the planning scheme and the interpretation. We do know, and it has certainly been expressed, that in the new structure of Building Tasmania focus is needed to deliver the planning scheme, that we need to deliver what we need to for Tasmania.