Office of State Revenue Maitland – Regrading issue – Dec 2016 (PDF version)

Grade 1/2 update

The PSA last communicated with OSR Maitland members in September this year, updating them on the progress of the dispute between the PSA and OSR Management regarding the incorrect grading of Grade 1/2 roles.

UPDATE: 13 December 2016

Management released a detailed response to the PSA last week, and followed this up with a teleconference/briefing with Industrial Advocates Jann Jeffries and Matthew Drake-Brockman, as well as your delegates Carolyn Dean and Daniel Ackling.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the Department rejected the PSA’s argument for a regrading of the Grade 1/2 clerks to 3/4s. The PSA’s argument included our detailed submission from January 2016 as well as a Briefing Note submitted by an OSR Maitland Assistant Director in 2015, which argued in favour of a regrading.

While the advice from the Department is disappointing, it is astounding it has gone against the Briefing Note by somebody in its organisation who has an understanding of the local issues and tasks in question. It is equally astounding and disappointing it has gone ahead and engaged an in-house evaluator to conduct the review of the roles. The PSA has consistently argued from the beginning that what must occur to ensure integrity in the process is an independent, external, Mercer-trained evaluator.

Your PSA industrial officers are in the process of working through the content of their response and deciding on our next steps. In the meantime, what is clear is the process is flawed. It did not use an external evaluator when evaluating the roles, and no consideration was given to what duties staff actually perform, which would include conversations with staff and their managers. These two methods must occur in order to determine the appropriate grading.

During the teleconference/briefing, the PSA pressed management that, given the sensitivity of the release of the information, they confront members in person, to respond to their questions and feedback, as a courtesy to allow staff to voice their views. This would also meet the Department’s duty of care obligations to its staff. We suggested one of the authors of the department’s response, as well as Michele Paphitis, should address the Maitland staff.

Management agreed to this.

Despite Management’s decision, the PSA does not intend to walk away from this. We will be looking into engaging our own independent evaluator, and will also explore the option of taking this to arbitration.