Pay is the number one issue for all public servants, but doubly so for ATO staff. The reason is simple. Australia’s public servants’ economic positions have been going backwards for the past two financial years.
ATO staff have an additional disadvantage
ATO staff have been more acutely affected. We lost three 2% annual pay increases between 2014 and 2016 because we were forced to vote NO to anti-worker enterprise agreements. Other agencies lost their workplace rights at this time. The value in the last financial year of those three lost pay increases is $135 million, being 6.12% of the ATO’s employee expenses of $2.2 billion.
The government is restoring the workplace rights lost by other APS agencies through enterprise bargaining. The ASU applauds this. But ATO staff need the government to restore our pay levels.
Effect of low ATO salaries
The biggest issue for us is the impact of low salaries on the recruitment and retention of the highly skilled staff the ATO needs to administer Australia’s taxation, superannuation and registration systems and operate its IT systems. Consider the words of an EL2 in the ATO Client Engagement Group.
“The ATO needs a better remuneration package to keep and attract more quality staff. A number of my colleagues have left the ATO and many more are leaving for more attractive positions elsewhere. Consequently, there aren’t enough suitable candidates to fill vacancies left behind and managers are getting desperate by filling vacancies with less experienced staff. This ultimately results in poorer delivery of services. A higher pay offer is needed to keep skilled and experienced staff. The government talks about moving away from using consultants and reinvesting in the public service. Now is the time to back those words with action and provide a better pay offer.”
Consider what happens in practice when the ATO puts staff with inadequate skills and experience up against highly skilled taxpayer representatives. An EL1 in the ATO’s Service Delivery Group illuminates how inadequate investment in ATO staff costs Australia’s Budget.
“I was having a chat with a personal friend, who is a partner at one of the Big Four. She asked why we have people do complex cases who don’t understand tax. She said she had a Private Wealth Top 500 review done on a client. The case officer didn’t understand what the issues were, asked for irrelevant information and wasted everyone’s time before eventually providing ‘Justified Trust’. She then said that in the course of the review she identified that the taxpayer had issues. At its conclusion, she quietly put together a plan with the taxpayer to fix these issues going forward. The case officer did not ask about these issues, and while they weren’t obvious, there were threads the case officer could have pulled together to get them out in the open. A top 500 taxpayer is one worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and these issues could have easily resulted in an adjustment of a couple of million. I think this demonstrates the false economy of trying to save on salaries.”
Productivity needs greater investment in people and technology
The government needs to take care that its policy of moving towards a greater commonality of pay does not become counter-productive. Saying agencies need to have a competitive employee value proposition does not make it so. The government is right to focus on productivity growth, but this will fail if agencies, such as the ATO, with the greatest potential to deliver this are restricted by low salaries and inadequate investment in their people and technology.
The Taxation Office is replete with roles that are paid far more generously in the private sector. We acknowledge the government can’t match those salaries as the APSC has reminded us. But the gap has grown. ATO salaries have fallen behind the rest of the APS, and the private sector has improved its pay, superannuation and conditions offering. The ATO is now in a crisis that is not apparent to the public, only because its loyal staff have battled above and beyond the call of duty.
ASU is prepared to campaign alongside the APS unions
The ASU does not see the need for industrial action to persuade the government to reconsider its pay offer. Rather, we see a union campaign that is designed to help the government and the public understand why a different approach is needed. The ASU will rise to this challenge for ATO staff. We hope the other APS unions will take similar action.
The ASU’s claims for a new enterprise agreement recognise this government cannot undo all the damage done to the ATO over nine years of Coalition government. But the Labor government needs to reconsider its approach to the ATO and the APS to protect and enhance their vital roles.
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