Article: Public Servants Spent $1 Million More on Flights During Double Qantas Status Credits

[aikman]

But I'd challenge you to name someone working in the private sector or elsewhere who isn't doing the same.

But they are not spending my money.

 

[dajop]

But they are not spending my money.

For many of us, if it’s a publicly listed company there’s a good chance they are spending our money too, in the form of super.

Same same but different.

 

[ab156]

I think we are missing the most important question:

How do I get one of these public service jobs ?

Well, most new jobs are in the sector so shouldn't be too hard.
<redacted>

 

[SMITHPEASE]

This is tax-payer money we're taking about here, there shouldn't be "perks", especially in Defence. It shouldn't be wasted unnecessarily on making a bunch of wasters in Russell more comfortable, at the expense of capability.

Hmmm ..... you seem to think that public servants and defence personnel only live and work in Canberra. As a retired Defence and PS employee, based in Brisbane, I traveled to Canberra, Darwin, Sydney, and Melbourne fairly regularly for work commitments. It wasn't a perk, and I often traveled in outside regular hours to be at the remote workplace in good time. These were required face to face events that couldn't be done by video conferencing. Getting the status credits and FF points was small comfort for this travel, especially when I had a young family at the time.

 

[ab156]

Firstly, the data reported requires more analysis to draw a direct line between the increase in spend and the DSC period. Regardless, the cohort in question is ineligible, under policy, to claim the DSC so a quick investigation into bookings during the period linked to accounts that have accepted the offer will help clear it up...

I have no issues in this cohort earning normal points. However, the discussion regarding "we don't get overtime and the travel is hard" is laughable and shows how detached from reality some are. Very, very, very few in the private sector have a different arrangement. Do you really think the line of non public servants on the 6am flight are on overtime?

The actual story here is, why are public servants racking up $5m in travel a month! What is the work that requires this level of travel? With the growth in public service jobs, surely we have one of each in every major city now?

 

[serfty]

[Moderator hat]

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Please check the title of this thread and keep posts in line with this.​

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[/Moderator Hat]

 

[SeaWolf]

The actual story here is, why are public servants racking up $5m in travel a month!

Given the size of the APS (~194,500, excluding active service military and non-APS entities) and the need for the geographic distribution of the service (only 36% are based in the ACT), that amount seems quite low, just $25.70 per employee. Obviously travel costs aren't incurred like that, but the low spend per headcount does illustrate that it's not wasteful.

 

[Seat0B]

Hmmm ..... you seem to think that public servants and defence personnel only live and work in Canberra. As a retired Defence and PS employee, based in Brisbane, I traveled to Canberra, Darwin, Sydney, and Melbourne fairly regularly for work commitments. It wasn't a perk, and I often traveled in outside regular hours to be at the remote workplace in good time. These were required face to face events that couldn't be done by video conferencing. Getting the status credits and FF points was small comfort for this travel, especially when I had a young family at the time.

I've had the same experience, both as ADF member, APS member and then Defence contractor.

And welcome to posting on AFF @SMITHPEASE

 

[significance]

Firstly, the data reported requires more analysis to draw a direct line between the increase in spend and the DSC period. Regardless, the cohort in question is ineligible, under policy, to claim the DSC so a quick investigation into bookings during the period linked to accounts that have accepted the offer will help clear it up...

I have no issues in this cohort earning normal points.

Public servants don't earn frequent flyer points for business travel, and haven't done in over a decade.

However, the discussion regarding "we don't get overtime and the travel is hard" is laughable and shows how detached from reality some are. Very, very, very few in the private sector have a different arrangement. Do you really think the line of non public servants on the 6am flight are on overtime?

Many of them do at least get TOIL or a travel allowance, unlike most public servants. But it doesn't matter: regardless of whether or not things are different in the private sector, frequent after-hours business travel with no compensation is not a perk!

The actual story here is, why are public servants racking up $5m in travel a month! What is the work that requires this level of travel? With the growth in public service jobs, surely we have one of each in every major city now?

The biggest user of travel in the public service is the Australian Defence Force. Defence Force personnel are frequently required to travel to sites around Australia for training and operational reasons. I have heard that the second biggest user of travel is the CSIRO, which has 5,500 staff located at 55 sites around the country. Regional representation around Australia and travel between sites is important for CSIRO's business, especially in their agricultural and environmental research. If CSIRO's expert on ants is based in Cairns but you want them to help with an outbreak of yellow crazy ants in Arnhemland or the spread of army ants to South East Queensland, they are going to have to do some travel. We can't afford to keep an ant expert in every town. Repeat that 1000 times for every niche field of expertise. These experts also need to work with each other across sites (perhaps the ant expert needs to work with a pesticides expert and a soil expert, for example), and you can't do everything via videoconference.

 

[Seat0B]

Regardless, the cohort in question is ineligible, under policy, to claim the DSC so a quick investigation into bookings during the period linked to accounts that have accepted the offer will help clear it up...

Please note, all my comments are based on the premise that a person who registers for DSC and travels on WoAG bookings will actually get the DSC - I don't have enough knowledge of the current contract to know whether they do or do not get the double credits. It may be that the system is smart enough not to award DSC on WoAG fares, even if the member has registered for DSC (ha!!)
I know they don't get double FF points because there have been no FF points awarded on WoAG flights since about 2010.

You are right about the policy environment. The principle is "no private benefit from public office" and the policy seems to be unambiguous.

FAQ 21 below (form Dept of Finance web site) expressly says that public officials may not accept offers relating to bonus status credits.

FAQs - Airlines and Travel Management Services | Department of Finance

Q1. What are the Whole of Australian Government Travel Arrangements? A1. The Whole of Australian Government (WoAG) Travel Arrangements (the Arrangements) are coordinated procurements established by the Department of Finance (Finance) and comprise Deeds of Standing Offer for: Travel Management...

www.finance.gov.au

So under this policy, the position is clear, if unpalatable. Public officials may not accept DSC offers in so far as they relate to receiving a private benefit from Commonwealth funded travel and may improperly influence the choice of airline.

However, this blanket prohibition seems to conflict with FAQ 14, which suggests that promotional offers made to "all APS officials" may be accepted. So I guess that turns on whether "all APS officials" are QFF (or VFF) members. And they probably aren't, and the Dept of Finance would probably argue that FAQ21 applies because it is more specific.




Or maybe FAQ21 refers to targeted DSC offers (of the kind that used to occur back around 2016 or so) where an individual QFF/VFF member was given a personalised DSC offer; whilst FAQ14 refers to the generalised DSC offers that airlines make to every FF member.

Very confusing, and the only way for a public official to be 100% sure they are compliant is not to accept any DSC offers.

But if we look at the clearly expressed intent of the policy, it is that public officials "should not obtain a personal benefit from Commonwealth funded activities". This raises some questions, addressed in the following examples:

Let's say I am a QFF/VFF member and I accept the DSC offer and then book my travel for upcoming holidays. I am not a public servant and as long as I'm not breaching any of my employer's policies, there is nothing wrong with that, right?

But what if I am a QFF/VFF member, and also a public offical. I accept the DSC, and book my travel for upcoming holidays, but I don't book any work travel during the DSC period. So there is no "private benefit from Commonwealth funded activity". Nothing wrong with that right? Well, it is a technical breach of the policy but pretty clearly not of the intent of the policy. So this is slightly grey, but I suspect you would be quite unlucky to get into trouble for it. It's unlikely that the APS would ever even know you had registered for DSC if you did no official travel.

Now, what if I am a QFF/VFF member, member of the APS, accept the DSC, and book my travel for upcoming holidays. I also book some essential work travel during the DSC period, having gone through all the usual travel approval requirements. (And for those who don't know, these are quite onerous and can take several days/weeks to get approval for. There is no self-approval of travel, you always have to persuade a boss of the need. And for international travel, that is usually a SES level/one star boss. In my opinion, this might be why the bookings were also higher in the week following the DSC offer - people were motivated by the DSC to initiate travel, but the normal approval processes were as slow as usual, and they missed the booking window).
My travel request was submitted before the DSC offer was announced, but given the usual time frames, it wasn't booked until the DSC travel window. In other words, I had no intention of benefiting privately from Commonwealth funded activity, but it is arguable that I have inadvertently actually had the "private" benefit of DSCs. Is there something wrong with this? Well according to policy, yes this is not a permitted activity, so there is something wrong with it, whatever your intentions were.

What if I have a genuinue need to travel, but do decide to bring forward the booking in order to qualify for DSCs? Ever more likely to be regarded as a breach of policy.

And I think we can all agree that the public official who fabricates the need for travel, at any time, including DSC offers, is definitely doing something wrong.

Part of the problem that people are having with this is that the policy (as is often the case) is poorly written, unclear, and leads to some less than ideal outcomes. But in the end, as a public servant, you have to comply with policy, even if it is stupid.

What I think is getting people's goat here is the perverse outcomes:

• Travellers for private businesses can get DSC, why not public officials? Answer - there are many things that are generally acceptable that are defined as not acceptable for public officials, just because they are public officals. For example, employing your spouse, expressing contrary opnions in social media, having a secondary employment. And gettiong DSC is another example of things that are defined as not acceptable as per FAQ21.
• Why should a public official be unable to register for DSC for private travel, just becasue of FAQ21? Answer, because that is the policy, whether you like it or not. This could be made more palatable if there was some way to keep private bookings and work bookings separate, but they are all linked to a single FF membership number, so there isn't until QF/VA IT develops the capacity (ha!)
• Is getting DSCs actually any kind of private benefit at all? Answer, people have different views about this, with some thinking it is a private benefit and others not, but getting DSCs is specifically defined in FAQ21 as being a private benefit, so again, it's policy whether you agree or not.
• Work travel is not any kind of benefit at at all - it's actually a burden on the traveller. Answer, personal experience says I agree with you if you think this, but the APS and ADF (and state and local governments too) are very sensitive to the public perception that travel is a very desirable benefit and that many members of the public think that it is also rorted. And so, like Caesar's wife, public officials must be, and be seen to be, above reproach. There cannot be any hint that there is any motivation for the traveller other than doing their public duties.
• Lots of people rort the system, so why single out DSCs. Answer - two wrongs don't make a right. Yes, cops should stop murders and issue speeding fines! It's both, not either/or. So travel booked specifically for obtaing DSC should be called out just as much as travel booked without genuine work need, or travel extended for personal benefit, or timetable rorting or whatever. I know that lived experience is that many of these things are overlooked, but it does not make it right. When you are a supervisor with approval privileges, you can choose how you act.
• Work travellers need a quiet place to work. Answer, yes you are right, and that is why regular SCs are allowed. If you travel enough to need lounge access, you will earn it. This is a pretty thin response from the APS in my view - all work travellers need lounge access, from their very first trip. And if single SCs aimed at lounge access are not a private benefit, why are DSC? But again, it doesn't matter whether I think it's a poor reason, it matters what is in the policy.
• Work travellers endure all kinds of privations - the 0430 start and the 2300 finish, the expensive meals (allowances notwithstanding) and the limits on what you can claim (eg are you allowed your usual pre-dinner tipple, and a glass or 2 of wine? Is your morning caffeine hit covered?), etc etc and that DSC is a way of balancing the ledger. Answer, personal experience says I agree with you, but....policy does not. And this one might have stronger ground as there is plenty of evidence the anti-corruption bodies DO NOT agree with this. It is never OK to find private ways of balancing the ledger. You are expected to use the system - put in a claim for overtime/TOIL for the long hours, negotiate harder in your EBA negotiations for more generous travel allowances etc. Again, experience says that we all know how that will go, but the anti-corruption bodies are very clear.

So, I largely personally agree with and understand the points than many are making, but in the end, policy says no.

For those who have several hours to spare, you can read more of my musings on what crosses the line into corruption and why public officials say they do it in my PhD thesis free download here.

CLEO signing off.

 

[Happy Dude]

I think we are missing the most important question:

How do I get one of these public service jobs ?

Are you electable?

 

[CaptJCool]

Fly - Air travel | Department of Finance

Status credits are accepted to support extra free luggage allowance etc

Q21 says should not be accepted suggesting no penalty if you did

FF points have been suppressed since 1 July 2010. 15 years

However the current WOAG contract is since May 2016 and that condition continues

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I have no issues in this cohort earning normal points. However, the discussion regarding "we don't get overtime and the travel is hard" is laughable and shows how detached from reality some are. Very, very, very few in the private sector have a different arrangement. Do you really think the line of non public servants on the 6am flight are on overtime?

Perhaps I am completely out of touch here but having in a previous life managed travel for a startup in Canada, I would argue that travel does take a toll. Some of the employees I had to book travel (including yours truly) had to fly between several continents in one week, in economy. In one instance, I had to book our CEO a flight departing Toronto on Monday night for Seoul, being in Seoul for about 12 hours for a business meeting, then on a back to San Francisco for 8 hours to meet with VCs before then heading back to Seoul. Some people hired for both the public and private sector are on the road on most weekdays and maybe only see their family on the weekends or a couple of times a month. This certainly does take a toll on you emotionally and physically and even a small gesture like a lounge access pales into insignificance to what they gave up to serve their company/country. Indeed, many companies have policies in place to ensure their road warriors do get adequate support including being seated in premium cabin.

The actual story here is, why are public servants racking up $5m in travel a month! What is the work that requires this level of travel? With the growth in public service jobs, surely we have one of each in every major city now?

I'm surprised the travel budget is so tiny. $5M a month is nothing when you look at the amount of domestic and international flying required and makes me wonder if most public servants are seated in economy. Contrary to popular belief, Australia is a big country and so getting to major city centres like Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, and Brisbane requires flying be it for defence or some other commonwealth department. Now consider international flights which may be needed for a host of reasons from supporting AFP investigations to trade deals with other countries. As anyone is aware international fights out of Australia are expensive since you have to be flying for more than 10 hours before you reach another country.

View attachment 445113
So under this policy, the position is clear, if unpalatable. Public officials may not accept DSC offers in so far as they relate to receiving a private benefit from Commonwealth funded travel and may improperly influence the choice of airline.

But then the question becomes if the benefit serves the commonwealth in some way, would it not make sense to pursue it? To give you an example, civil servants who are travelling on business are given a per diem every day that they can spend on things like meals. If you have Qantas Gold frequent flyer status you can visit lounges and eat there instead of eating at a restaurant and billing it back to the commonwealth. Would it not be prudent for someone who has to travel regularly to take the effort to earn those status credits (which they likely would earn regardless) so that they do have the lounge access thereby saving the commonwealth money?

 

[justinbrett]

Fly - Air travel | Department of Finance

FF points have been suppressed since 1 July 2010. 15 years

Prior to WoAG, Defence had its own contract with Qantas (in fact the WoAG contract was modelled on the preceding Defence contract), and even that contract did not earn points. That’s 20+ years of no points.

Defence was the single biggest QF customer in its own right, even without WoAG.

 

[DC3]

How do I get one of these public service jobs ?

With the rorts perks?

 

[bussyboy]

Suely there is argument that SCs and status save government from having to shell out for lounge access through qantas club?

With the rorts perks?

But no coffee in the office

 

[AuSammy]

Wow! Just wow!

What a beatup storm in a teacup with non co-related superficial information without proper context that proves absolutely nothing. Poor form for AFF.

 

[Drakecula]

I can confirm DSC do not apply to flights booked for govt travel. I had to book travel for work and it was coincidentally during a DSC period (which I'd activated for personal travel) and did not get DSC for the work trip.

 

[Seat0B]

But then the question becomes if the benefit serves the commonwealth in some way, would it not make sense to pursue it? To give you an example, civil servants who are travelling on business are given a per diem every day that they can spend on things like meals. If you have Qantas Gold frequent flyer status you can visit lounges and eat there instead of eating at a restaurant and billing it back to the commonwealth. Would it not be prudent for someone who has to travel regularly to take the effort to earn those status credits (which they likely would earn regardless) so that they do have the lounge access thereby saving the commonwealth money?

So in answer to the first question, you're confusing different stages of the policy cycle. Your point is totally valid during policy development. All policies should be developed to reflect what is determined to be the best for the Commonwealth, taking into account the kinds of financial things you mention and balancing these with the level of public interest/outrage the choice may entail. But this policy is not in development - it is in implementation, and the policy, as written does not allow for the discretion to determine that a certain pattern/style of travel etc is in the commonwealth's best interest in any particular case. If this is allowed, the policy will usually have a line that says so, and it will almost always be referred to a higher level delegate to make that decision. Probably not cost effective.

Also, in relation to APS travelling allowances, in most entities, the traveller just gets an allowance for meals, usually paid in advance, and does NOT have to substantiate how or even if they spent the allowance. They get the money regardless. There may be some organisations that have a more traditional acquittal style process for travelling allowances, and many do require their contractors to claim in reimbursement supported by receipts up to the APS allowance, but for most employees, they just get the money, straight to their bank account, in advance. And yes, it is well recognised that this can be rorted by people who bring their own food from home, eat at a friend's or relative's place for free or generally cheap charlie it. Most entities feel that the risks of this are less than the huge costs of acquittal and checking every expense, and dealing with the borderline cases - eg I know someone who genuinely ate 2 packets of chips and 2 mini bottles of scotch from the mini bar for their dinner when they arrived in Darwin at about 2230 one night and found that room service had finished for the night at 2130. The Department in question refused to pay "because mini-bar is excluded." Tell me where else you can safely get something to eat in the outskirts of Darwin at that time of night, without a car? And if you took a taxi/uber to a restaurant (apparently more acceptable than mini bar), is the taxi fare also reimburseable? All these arguments were made and in time, the department paid the claim. What a waste of everyone's time and energy for an amount of around $35.

So you see, even though it seems like there are sensibile arguments to be made, these are the sorts of things that actually happen and why the public service usually prefers to just make a blanket policy and then blindly apply it on the basis that you win some and you lose some. Does it pass the pub test? Probably not, but that is how it rolls. Personally, I think it would have been more prudent to continue to pay for lounge access for frequent or senior travellers (however defined) and preclude status credits along with FF points on WoAG travel - but they didn't ask me during policy development . YMMV.

 

[Drakecula]

I'm surprised the travel budget is so tiny. $5M a month is nothing when you look at the amount of domestic and international flying required and makes me wonder if most public servants are seated in economy.

Domestically, yes we're in economy. Unless you're senior executive level.