The Victorian public sector performs a wide variety of functions on behalf of government, including directly providing services to the community, providing policy advice, collecting and administrating public money, and regulating, funding and contracting private and non-government organisations for service delivery.
These services are delivered through:
Here is the composition is of the Victorian public sector. Further detail is available in the VPSC’s annual the State of the Public Sector in Victoria report.
Public entities are organisations that exercise a public function but are established outside the public service. As bodies operating at ‘arm’s length’ from government, public entities perform their functions with varying degrees of autonomy from ministers in their day-to-day decisions. Figure 2 provides the definition of a public entity.The majority of Victorian public entities that employ staff are managed by a board accountable to the relevant portfolio minister.
Under the Public Administration Act 2004 (s5), a public entity is defined as a body, whether corporate or unincorporated, that is established by:
In addition to these criteria, the Act applies a further set of tests. These are summarised below.
Departments and administrative offices are not public entities.
The ‘legal form’ of a public entity refers to:
The appropriate legal form for a new public entity depends on the primary function of the entity and the degree of ministerial control required. The three most common types of legal form used for public entities in Victoria are:
In general, a statutory authority is the most appropriate legal form for the majority of public entities created in Victoria and can be tailored, as required, to suit the specific functions of a public entity.
The other legal forms have more limited application. Non-statutory advisory bodies should only be considered where an entity is being established for the purpose of providing advice to a minister(s) or department. A Corporations Act company should only be used where an entity is to perform functions with a highly commercial focus.
Figure 3 summarises the establishing mechanisms for the different types of legal form.