Dear %FIRSTNAME%,

We regularly meet to talk about your concerns with your Directors and Executive District Director Paul Garrahy at the Joint Consultative Committee (JCC). The quarterly JCC was held Wednesday 18 December 2024 for the South West Sydney District and was attended by PSA Industrial staff, your PSA Delegates and Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) leadership.

Overtime Advice 

PSA again raised the push back members receive when requesting overtime. The message to the members is still: if you’re doing Overtime, it will be approved. While there is a more nuanced discussion at a management level about the need to reduce the number of people working excessive hours and the managing of budgets, where staff have been directed to undertake work later in the day that will inevitability push them into overtime and must be done at that time, staff are to be paid overtime.

Learning and Development

Delegates voiced members’ frustration at not being released for development opportunities and requested more information about the approval process for secondments. We raised that there are candidates who have not been advised they were successful when applying for a secondment unless they had already had their release approved. DCJ acknowledge they cannot financially disadvantage staff where they have won a secondment at a higher grade and acknowledged the difficultly in balancing operational needs while providing staff with opportunity.

Accommodations impact on culture 

PSA raised that while the current arrangement when working from the office is hotdesking, some put a considerable amount of effort into ensuring they are booking the same desk location on an ongoing basis negating the dynamic and agile workplace hotdesking aims to create. Delegates raised that silos are developing, hierarchies reinforced, and some members are increasingly isolated. An unintended consequence of many staff not sitting with their team is new starters have limited access to more experienced Caseworkers (CW) and instead new CWs are supporting each other. DCJ are receptive to the impact this accommodation issue is having on the culture within Community Service Centres (CSCs) and working through the issues raised. While hotdesking is the current policy, Paul is open to tweaking the arrangements to ensure they are fit for purpose.

Fortnightly Converge Sessions 

Some members have raised privacy concerns with regards to attending these sessions, PSA raised this as a barrier to more people participating. DCJ agreed to take another look at the logistics of utilising rooms that do not have CCTV.

PSA welcomes the introduction of these sessions to support your wellbeing and resilience while undertaking the important work and service delivery to the most vulnerable members of the community – children and families. PSA Delegates will be participating in these sessions, and we strongly encourage you to consider if this is something that could be useful in supporting your wellbeing and practice.

Senior Caseworkers – sign off to role

Some members have received push back when requesting sign off to step into the Senior Caseworker role, Paul requested a list from PSA that he could follow up on. Any members who have experienced this push back are encouraged to reach out to the PSA.

That was the final South West Sydney JCC for the year, meetings will resume in early 2025. A special thank you to PSA Delegates for their time and valuable contributions to these meetings.