The cost blowouts to the shared services include $7 million for renting floor space that is not being fully utilised. As part of the project a complete relocating of regional staff into the city area, about 4,000 staff from 56 government agencies will moving to a centralized location in the heart of the city. The Government has spent $9 million on fitouts at Grenfell Street location which currently accommodate empty space and desks. According to Committee chairman Liberal MLC Rob Lucas it is likely that the dead rent estimate would be even higher than the Governments latest estimates given the ongoing problems and delays in the implementing the shared services project. Delays pushing the project back by 6 to 12 months maybe even longer result in further blowouts. The Public Service Association (PSA) has welcomed the delay in establishing a shared services department in South Australia. PSA’s general secretary Jan McMahon says shared services departments do not work interstate and can mean upheaval for workers. Public service employees would prefer that they were able to stay in their own work locations as moving into the city to work will disadvantage them in many ways. With technology these days, surely there isn’t a need to relocate people into the big central buildings in the CBD of Adelaide. The Government has rented several locations to house these government employees. Locations include nine floors of the Westpac building in King William Street, and sites on Wakefield and Grenfell Streets. Although these thousands of public servants are due to be housed in the buildings, fewer than 200 are currently working in the Westfield building. As at 30 June this year the figures given to the Parliament’s Budget & Finance Committee show that only 505 out if the total 678 seats or desks at the nine floors leased at Westpac Building were still vacant. So the Government is wasting money on dead rent. There have been similar blowouts with introducing Shared Services...