Bulletin – Crown Solicitor’s Office Restructure – 31 January (pdf version)

Your union sent you a bulletin on 25 January 2019 about a proposed restructure affecting legal support and reception employees called the ‘Service Improvement Program’.

A members’ meeting was held on Wednesday 30 January 2019. PSA sought member feedback on the proposed restructure. We thank the members who attended and for their initial feedback. At that meeting we became aware that CSO employees (who are not PSA members) may not know about this restructure. It appears Directors have been given a copy of the Service Improvement Program change plan but have not provided it, or discussed it with their employees. Usually in a restructure a department has a meeting for all staff and the PSA attends to understand the restructure, to provide feedback. However, in this restructure CSO just met with affected employees on Thursday 24 January 2019. It has given those employees until 7 February 2019 to provide their feedback.

The PSA has written to the CSO seeking an extension to provide feedback and to release the Service Improvement Program change plan to all employees. The 14-day feedback period should commence from when the change plan is received by all employees so they can also provide feedback. Should the CSO not agree to our request we will have no option than to pursue an industrial dispute at the Industrial Relations Commission.

Members have given initial feedback that this will have a major impact on their work, for example, the Reception staff have detailed knowledge and experience of CSO business, they appropriately respond to telephone calls from the other party to redirect their calls as appropriate or deal with callers or visitors to the office who may be irate, have a mental health issue, or be a vexatious litigant. Whereas, the proposed new ‘Concierge’ role does not acknowledge the experience and level of responsibility required to meet the demands of reception, such as dealing with irate members of the public, having corporate knowledge of the CSO and not performing specialised administration duties. We are seeking case studies on why Reception as it currently exists is important to your work.

Any feedback on the proposed restructure and case studies will be collated into our feedback and presented to the CSO. All feedback received is strictly confidential. Please email your feedback to .

The PSA will continue to update members on this restructure with further bulletins.

Your delegates are:
Louise Coory, Senior Solicitor

Teri Southwell, Business Analyst

Your PSA staff:
Andrew Boulton – PSA Industrial Officer

Katie Summers – PSA Organiser

Your union is only as strong as its members – the more members we have, the stronger we are. Your union is not only your voice in the work place, the PSA also handles individual issues at work.

What can you do?

Give a copy of this bulletin to your colleagues.

Print this bulletin and put it up on your notice board.

Ask a colleague to join the PSA.

Get involved as your Workplace Contact

Not a member join online – https://membership.psa.asn.au/register

Members can update their details at – https://psa.asn.au/update-your-details/