The first steps towards a central human resources service for the Government will be taken within the next few weeks, the junior Cabinet Office minister said this week.

Senator Vance Campbell told the Senate on Monday that the recruitment for a leader of the new Department of Employee and Organisational Development will start “in the coming weeks”.

He added that the second and third phases of the plan will transfer human resources staff from all government services to the new department.

The present Department of Human Resources will be phased out at the same time.

The government plan to change its decentralised human resources structure was announced in the House of Assembly last November.

Mr Campbell said that the present set-up lead to “the Government's inability to adequately address the human and organisational capital within the public service”.

He added: “HR services are currently delivered in a fragmented and dispersed manner, which results in the duplication of effort, inconsistent service delivery and an inordinate amount of time to execute basic functions such as recruitment of staff.

“The new structuring will cause a proactive approach to industrial and employee relations, reduce time to recruit via modernised workforce training and recruitment processes and will improve our capability to deliver workforce value to the public.”

There are 4,680 employees in the public service represented by six unions and with seven different collective bargaining agreements and conditions of service orders.