Community Services – PSA Direction to Community Services members – June 2018 (pdf version)

The PSA is aware FACS Deputy Secretary John Hubby sent an email to all staff on 20 June 2018 about Performance Development Plans. The email can be viewed HERE.

The PSA almost collectively choked that “investing in our people” is one of FACS corporate priorities given the:

• overall budget cut to FACS in 2018/19
• spin of announcing new caseworkers (less than 0.01 per cent increase in caseworkers a year over four years) in the budget when in reality the Department is doing what it should have done all along and moving to appoint temporary staff to ongoing roles
• $120 million ChildStory debacle which has added to the daily pressure experienced by caseworkers
• failure to ensure safe and manageable workloads for caseworkers resulting in long hours and forfeited Flextime
• obsession with productivity and unit costs thus exacerbating already unsafe workloads
• failure to do anything to address vicarious and secondary trauma experienced by caseworkers as a result of the challenging work they do.

FACS clearly does not have the genuine commitment to staff or the systems in place to proceed with Performance Development Plans in 2018/19.
 
The PSA takes this opportunity to reiterate that the directions to community services members issued on 10 May 2018 remain in place.

These directions are:

1. PSA members are directed to use the Workload Planner (found HERE as well as WLP tool found HERE and FAQ found HERE) and not accept or allocate cases beyond a worker’s contracted hours or agreed paid overtime hours. Any case that you can not work on during a four-week Workload Planner period should NOT be allocated to you. This means if a child/case has zero activity hours in your Workload Planner, that child is not to be allocated to you on ChildStory.

 

2. PSA members are directed NOT to work excessive and unsafe hours which results in the forfeiture of hours, such as working in excess of 14 hours credit in any flex period. Members are reminded it is a legal requirement to accurately record all hours on your flex sheet. If you do unpaid work (such as overtime that has not been approved) over a weekend then record the dates and hours worked in the section “Certified Correct” on your flex sheet.

 

3. PSA members are directed NOT to complete their Performance Development Plan (PDP) including participation in the E-Learning modules, or take part in any Performance Development Program planning or implementation activities. The Career Plan section and Performance Development Career Planning Tool are exempt.

Refer to bulletin issued on 10 May, 2018 – HERE

We urge you to adhere to these directions and not take up John Hubby’s invitation to prepare your PDP. How can the Department pursue this course of action when the Executive cannot secure funding for programs to support caseworkers experiencing vicarious and secondary trauma and it cannot provide you with a safe working environment?

The PSA will continue to fight for changes to the FACS workplace culture. Staff need manageable workloads and their award entitlements.