Community & Public Sector Union / Civil Service Association of WA
MEDIA RELEASE – EMBARGOED UNTIL 5am Thursday 17 Dec 09
The CPSU/CSA calls on the State Government to get it’s costings right.
In announcing the Economic Audit Committee report The Treasurer claimed that the costs for holding
prisoners at Acacia Prison was $40,000 less per prisoner than the costs for holding prisoners at a public
facility.
The Treasurer based his claim on the report of the Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services of
Acacia Prison published in July last year. This report provides a comparative cost analysis. [Paragraphs
1.32 to 1.39].
The CPSU/CSA says the OICS report should not be used to compare costs and that the Government is
misleading the public in doing so.
The OICS report makes a comparison with all public prisons not with a similar classification prison
(medium) with a similar number of prisoners (for the purpose of economies of scale).
In addition the OICS report does not account for the public system providing all remand facilities in
which prisoners are held with tighter security and greater levels of services required by legislation.
Furthermore the OICS report does not account for the public prisons providing all maximum security
prison facilities, special handing and protective units/services.
The OICS report does not incorporate a range of costs that are attributed to the public prisons costing
model but not included in the private prison costs. These include the initial assessments of prisoners
which are undertaken by the public prisons facilities only. Following placement at Acacia prisoners
undergo reviews only whereas the initial assessment is far more comprehensive. The public prison
facilities are required to intake new prisoners daily whereas the Acacia facility limits intakes to two
days per week.
We do not believe the OICS meant the analysis to be used to compare private prison and public prison
costs and their analysis is qualified by such terms such as "suppose for present purposes" where the
present purposes were not to assess and compare costs or value for money between private and
public prisons.
It is should be noted that the Office of Custodial Services was established as a result of the
privatisation of correctional facilities in Western Australian. The costs of operations of OICS should
also be included in any models used to compare costs between public and private service delivery.
The state government has developed models for comparing the costs between public and private
service delivery called the “Public Sector Comparator”. All public sector costs are arbitrarily increased
by at least 10% under this model.
Costing models should also include specific analysis of the difference between employee wage rates
and conditions of employment. These are not addressed in the OICS report.
Toni Walkington, Branch Secretary of the CPSU/CSA said,
“The CPSU/CSA calls on the State Government to release the analysis undertaken by the line
agency Departments and/or the Department of Treasury and Finance. If our community is to
be confident that the decision to privatise or contract out services is based on sound values
and analysis the State Government must release their analysis of the comparative costs.”
Media Contacts:
For Comment: Toni Walkington, Branch Secretary, 0403 244 505
Stefan Szo, CPSU/CSA Communications Coordinator
0431 224 202 / 9323 3811 / publicity@cpsucsa.org / CPSU/CSA website:
NEWS 
