Mr. Kevin Bakhurst:

There has been extensive staff engagement, as the Senator will be aware. First of all, we published the framework for the strategy in November. That was available to everyone, and the key pillars of the strategy were in that framework and were made publicly available. We had a town hall at that point to discuss it with staff and take feedback. We then did a very wide consultation which involved not only members of the public and key stakeholders but also, for the first time ever, all members of staff, so we got their feedback. The feedback in that consultation from the public, the stakeholders and the staff was extremely positive about the main pillars of the strategy. In the document we published this week, those pillars are still there. The document gave a lot more detail and a timeline but, between publishing in November and this timeline, a significant number of staff have been involved in specific areas in developing the strategy. There has therefore been extensive staff engagement. Obviously, we are aware of some of the comments made in particular by some of the unions about that. We met with the unions before we published the strategy document and we met with the managers' association and with a new group we have set up of senior managers, about 90 managers, across the organisation. That was all on the day before we published the strategy. There has therefore been very extensive staff engagement.

I realise this will be a really important part of delivering this strategy because this is about ensuring the future of the organisation and the futures of 1,400 people who will be there. We understand that 400 people will be leaving, but I should emphasise that, first, we have said repeatedly that that will be through voluntary exits; second, it will be done over a period of five years; and third, we have about 186 people due to retire in that period to start with. The previous two voluntary exit schemes we opened up saw in excess of 400 applications and we let many fewer than that go. People have a high level of interest in taking the opportunity to leave the organisation because there are a lot of opportunities outside that they want.

Lastly, we made it very clear that part of the strategy is about investing in staff and providing training and learning for people in order that they can choose to move around if there are appropriate alternative jobs inside the organisation.