One great piece of advice in Richard Carlson’s Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff is “if someone throws you the ball, you don’t have to catch it”.  Judging from today’s front page headline in the Australian newspaper (Treasury swamped by demands) it is advice that the Treasury econocrats need to follow.

Treasury should be glad there are so many demands for its advice, because it is a reflection of the department’s prestige and reputation.  With demand for Treasury’s advice exceeding its capacity to provide it, however, Treasury needs to assert itself and have a robust dialogue with the Government about where it should direct its limited resources.

It’s likely that significantly less than 100% of what Treasury does is either absolutely critical to national economic management or is required by law, so there certainly would exist scope for the Treasury to push back on some demands from the Government.  For example, Treasury would have a large volume of correspondence from the public that it has to draft replies to for sign off by ministers or their staffers.  Given that many of these replies simply recycle tired lines from budget documents or media releases, the value of this significant effort is questionable.

On the other hand, if all of Treasury’s work is of the highest importance, it should push for more resources from the Government.  If Treasury can’t find suitable staff, it should contract the work out.  There are plenty of economic consultants across Australia who would gladly take it on.