The agency, part of the Valuer-General, is the key state agency that determines the worth of land for rates and taxes.

Fittingly for its name, the agency looked at the value provided by agencies and contractors it used for its highly specialised services and found that it was more cost-effective to hire permanent, full-time public sector workers.

Value NSW estimates moves to hire more internal staff will save the agency $28 million, and is therefore setting up a graduate program to attract high-quality public servants to its ranks.  

“What Value NSW found is what we have been saying for years: outsourcing and privatisation are expensive ways to provide public services,” said PSA CPSU NSW General Secretary Stewart Little. “What Value NSW has done is crunch the numbers on how much money will be saved by hiring full-time public servants instead of using outsourcers and contractors.

“As we said in a recent campaign, privatisation hurts everyone. Everyone, that is, other than the outsourcing companies charging taxpayers top dollar.”

Value NSW also found that internal staff were also completing work faster than external providers and with a superior compliance rate.

“The costings done by Value NSW back up our campaign years ago against the privatisation of Land and Property Information, the State Government’s Land Titles function, was the wrong move,” said Mr Little. “We have buyers paying more for this vital service, when the right decision back then was to invest more in public servants.

“I urge all government agencies to follow the example set by Value NSW and look at the amount of money leaking from agencies to unaccountable outsourcing companies.”