Establishment—full-time equivalent staff (paid) (consumer consultants), average N[NNN{.N}]

Guide for use:

Consumer consultants are persons employed (or engaged via contract) on a part-time or full-time paid basis to represent the interests of consumers and advocate for their needs. This implies the person received a salary or contract fee on a regular basis. It does not refer to arrangements where the consumer only received reimbursements of expenses or occasional sitting fees for attendance at meetings.

The average is to be calculated from pay period figures. The length of the pay period is assumed to be a fortnight.

Data on full-time equivalent staffing numbers by category should be consistent with data on salaries and wages by staffing category. If the full-time equivalent for contract staff is not collected then salaries for those contract staff should be included in other recurrent expenditure data items.

Where staff provide services to more than one establishment, full-time equivalent staff members should be apportioned between all establishments to which services are provided on the basis of hours paid for in each (salary costs should be apportioned on the same basis).

Origin:
National Health Data Committee

Comments:
This metadata item was amended during 1996-97. Until then, both average and end of year counts of full-time equivalent staff were included, and the end of year counts used as surrogates for the average counts if the latter were unavailable. The average count is more useful for accurate analysis of staffing inputs for establishment outputs and for assessments and comparisons of labour costs.