WA Premier Colin Barnett outlined plans yesterday to offer 1000 public servants voluntary redundancies, along with 200 forced redundancies.

Barnett and Treasurer Troy Buswell sold the cuts and redundancies as an opportunity for the public service to increase its flexibility and invest in efficiency measures.

“It is important that WA government agencies have the ability to run their organisations in the most efficient way, in line with contemporary management practice,” Barnett said.

“There are many reasons why the nature of a government department’s activities might alter, changing its staff requirements.

“For example, there could be changing demand for services, certain programs might end, or there could be advances in technology that see some services delivered differently or more effectively.”

Barnett said directors-general would be encouraged to target the redundancy packages to under-employed or surplus staff in “non-core areas”

The WA Department of Mines and Petroleum has told MiningNew.net sister site EnergyNewsPremium that it does not know exactly how many cuts it is facing at this stage, with the premier’s office saying it will ask various departments to identify who they can potentially cut before making decisions on how many will be lost from each department.

“The state government will make voluntary redundancy packages available to 1000 employees across the entire public sector,” the premier said in a statement.

“No individual agencies have been given specific targets and the decisions on whether or not to accept applications for redundancies from staff will be made by the Public Sector Commissioner upon receipt of the recommendations of the directors-general or CEOs of the agencies involved.”

However, fears that key departments could be cut back leading to lengthier approval times on projects were dismissed by the WA Chamber of Mines and Energy.

The resource sector would regard those staff involved in projects approvals as core staff and is confident that is understood by the State Government,” chief executive Reg Howard-Smith said.

Howard-Smith also added that it was looking forward to any efficiency gains as a result of the slimming down of the public service.

“Industry has welcomed the government’s commitment and focus on reducing approval times and the cost of doing business. In particular, CME is looking forward to the Department of Mines and Petroleum approvals tracking system being rolled out across other government agencies,” he said.

“CME strongly believes this will encourage future growth and investment in the Western Australian resource sector by meeting industry expectations for accountable, transparent and timely approvals.”

Energy peak body the Australia Petroleum Production and Exploration Association elected not to comment when contacted for comment.