People Matter Employee Survey

The Public Service Commission is conducting a survey throughout the public sector on the values, ethics and culture of their workplaces. It’s open to all employees, full-time and part-time, casuals, apprentices, graduates, temporary employees, contractors and people on leave. The PSA encourages member to participate so it can reflect our collective workforce experiences and be used as a useful benchmark for future surveys. Public sector…

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Use of force in prisons: job numbers critical

The NSW Ombudsman’s review into the use of force in the state’s prisons contains useful recommendations, but ignores the critical issue – job numbers, the NSW Public Service Association says. The NSW Public Service Association has welcomed the NSW Ombudsman's review of policy and practice around the use of force in the state's prisons, particularly recommendations for better prison officer training and improvements in CCTV…

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Loss of experienced OEH staff places communities and environment at risk

  Regional communities will be left exposed following the loss of 350 jobs from the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH), including 150 rangers and staff in frontline roles. PSA General Secretary John Cahill says the 1.5% budget cut across government  departments will hit OEH hard, with rangers, scientists and experienced staff responsible for land clearing monitoring, fire fighting and pest control all facing the…

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Parents and school learning support officers demand restoration of funding for children with disabilities

Parents, students and school learning support officers gathered in Sydney  to demand that the State Government restores funding for students with ‘low-level’ disabilities who will lose individual funding support under the ‘Every Student, Every School’ initiative from this week, the beginning of Term 3, 2012. Without immediate reinstatement of funding for these 272 schools, the vital day-to-day support provided by thousands of school learning support…

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Outsourcing out-of-home care won’t fix child protection system

Outsoucing out-of-home care won’t fix the child protection system in NSW. The NSW Government has announced plans to transfer an additional $123 million from the Community Services budget to fund to a private sector take over of out-of-home care (foster care) services. Community Services currently provides 85% of out-of-home care services to children and young people in NSW. This decision will mean that the private…

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