In 2022 the PSA conducted a survey of North Coast and Mid North Coast Community Services members asking how many hours per month they lost.

The figures are concerning.

51 per cent of members lost 1 to 5 hours per month.

18 per cent of members lost 6 to 10 hours per month.

11 per cent of members lost 11 plus hours per month.

Recently SafeWork NSW issued an Improvement Notice on Wagga Wagga CSC after a caseworker had enough of management allocating excessive workloads. The caseworker contacted SafeWork NSW and explained that despite repeatedly telling management that the work allocated was unreasonable and unsafe, they continued to be allocated work. The SafeWork Inspector visited the CSC, and this led to the Inspector issuing an Improvement Notice.

Caseworkers have the Workload Planner (WLP) to manage their workload and Manager Casework can use this tool to push back on unhealthy workloads for their team and themselves. All other staff such as Managers, Admin, OSP, PSP, Commissioning and Planning that don’t have the WLP tool to manage their workload also have a right to raise concern about their excessive workload.

We encourage all our members to raise their workload issues and to contact the PSA and SafeWork NSW if these concerns are ignored. The first step after raising your concerns is to lodge a WHS incident report stating your work overload.

All members have the right to say no to unmanageable workloads and put their Psychological wellbeing first, no matter where you sit in the hierarchy.

Working for free is masking the huge under resourcing of Community Services as a result of 12 years of a government that puts the vital work our members in Community Service do in the too hard basket.