The Department of Health and Aged Care is seeking support to develop a robust framework to improve budget management and forecasting for the cost of a range of corporate services provided in Corporate and Financial Services Branch to support business areas in the department and external portfolio agencies.

The cost model will support the branch operations by:

• Providing an evidence base for annual funding allocations and deriving causes of variations in budget versus actual funding;
• Determining cost of services and ensuring service recoveries (where relevant) are aligned;
• Provide efficient cost recovery processes; and
• Forecast future year resource requirements to inform workforce planning.

The primary deliverable will be a cost model that will be able to be maintained by staff within Corporate Financial Strategy and Services Branch and be able to efficiently (preferably automatically updated at a minimum monthly):

• Recommendation that aligns with the department's ICT policy and implementation for most appropriate platform for operating and maintaining a simple and easy to update model;
• Delivery of the model for core services currently provided by the branch listed below;

-Payroll;

-Financial Services – including Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Travel and Expense Management;

-Contact Centre Services – switchboard, program information lines and corporate support (query management and transaction processing);

-Business Process Automation (under development); and

-Shared Services Management – account management, service catalogue and assurance.

• Cost of services aligned to level 4 process maps with a three-layer cost model design (fixed/variable/platform);
• Development of volume driven cost model to drive budget allocation decisions;
• Identify and define the Key Performance Indicators for each of the core service
• Measure the cost of services and separating the operational costs to service improvement;
• Ability to forecast the current and future years result for volume driven services and update the model with actual volume and related costs;
• Using the model to track align the benefits to the iWOW framework;
• Ability to easily add or remove services to the model; and
• Training of CFSB staff on operating and maintaining the model

-Adding new services

-Updating inputs

-Technical documentation and user guides

Estimated start date: Monday, 14 April 2025

Initial contract duration: 3 months

Extension term: 3 months

Number of extensions: 1

Working arrangements: Remote