As you will be aware, the Child Protection Award 2025 has been in place for almost a year now.
Recently the PSA supported several members who had not been paid their excess hours under Clause 12 Flex Time of the Child Protection Award. The members had accumulated over 100 hours in flex time since the Child Protection Award came into effect in October 2025.
Due to possible miscommunication, they did not lodge their Clause 12 Flex Time overtime until reaching out to the PSA. The PSA provided the instructions on ‘How to Enter Excess Flex Credit’ (which can be found HERE) as provided by Department of Communities and Justice (DJC), and we contacted senior leadership. We are pleased to report that DCJ corrected the issue within a week.
If you have outstanding flex hours, we advise you to lodge as per the instructions.
The key parts of the Child Protection Award are:
- Clause 11 Overtime – This is the crisis driven, work over 9 hours in a day Clause. If work is required to be performed and cannot be reasonably done at another time, any work over 9 hours (9.5 with a half hour lunch break) the hours are deemed to be overtime.
- Clause 11 is crisis driven. This is for work that must be done today. Placement breakdown, Level 1 that requires support into the night, etc. This is not for day-to-day tasks or work that can be planned ahead.
- Clause 12 Flex Time – This prevents the forfeiture of flex hours. If you have worked more than your contract hours (140 hours per flex period for full time) and have a flex credit of 14 hours to carry over, there needs to be a written strategy created between you and your manager on how to reduce any excess hours in the current or following flex period. If this cannot be achieved, the hours above the allowable flexible working hours credit (14) will be paid as overtime.
- Clause 12 is for when you have excess work allocated to you in a flex period and you and your manager cannot find ways to reduce the workload. Make sure that you speak with your manager and have a documented outcome. Use a Workload Planner to record and track your workload.
If you have any concerns or issues, please contact the PSA on 1800 772 679