Following ongoing dispute proceedings before Commissioner Rizzo in the NSW Industrial Relations Commission (IRC Case No. 2026/00331998), the PSA provides the following vital update regarding the proposed Government Technology Platforms Restructure Management Plan (RMP 2026).
Impending departmental announcement on Tuesday 13 October 2026
The Department has formally indicated that it intends to release its final RMP design and issue individual role impact notifications to all Government Technology Platforms employees on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, with Stage 2 Internal Expressions of Interest (EOIs) scheduled to open on Friday, 23 October 2026, and Stage 1 Direct Assignment letters to follow on 6 November 2026.
‘Consultation in the Dark’: the Department’s secrecy Catch-22
The PSA places on record its concern regarding the Department’s ongoing strategy of ‘consultation in the dark’. While Department of Customer Service claims that ‘extensive and meaningful consultation’ has occurred, it has withheld the underlying Treasury submissions, approved business cases, capability scoring rubrics, and line-item deficit models from staff and the union.
Department of Customer Service has constructed an unacceptable Catch-22: it withholds the capability mapping tools and financial evidence behind closed doors, asserts that consultation is complete, and expects staff to accept significant permanent job cuts and expanded temporary roles without seeing the underlying evidence. Consultation without transparency is not genuine consultation.
Why the PSA is currently unable to provide specific overall staffing numbers
The PSA advises members that the union is currently prevented from publishing or broadcasting specific overall staffing figures, granular role deletion tables, and team-by-team headcounts to the broader membership. This constraint arises directly from the strict confidentiality and information embargo imposed under Order 2 of the Industrial Relations Commission directions of 7 October 2026, as the formal industrial dispute remains active in without-prejudice conciliation before the Commission.
Why this embargo is unsatisfactory and contrary to meaningful consultation
The PSA places on the record that withholding detailed structural numbers and operating under an information embargo is unsatisfactory, industrially unacceptable, and contrary to the principles of lawful, meaningful consultation established under Clause 65 of the Crown Employees (Public Service Conditions of Employment) Reviewed Award 2009, Premier’s Memorandum M2025-07, and settled Commission jurisprudence:
- Consultation requires full disclosure before decisions become final: meaningful consultation is an enforceable legal right. It requires an employer to provide affected employees and their representative union with sufficient, timely, and genuine information – including the full organisational design, staffing models, and financial justifications – so that staff can meaningfully consider the impacts and propose viable alternatives before decisions are locked in.
- Inability to take informed member instructions: as a democratic, member-based trade union, the PSA is bound to engage directly with members whose jobs are on the line. Gagging the release of specific structural numbers prevents the union from consulting transparently with affected members and strips staff of procedural fairness.
- The flawed ‘consultation in a vacuum’: demanding that public sector workers accept structural reorganisations while concealing the underlying staffing numbers and evidence reduces consultation to a hollow administrative ritual. Restructuring in secret while running down the clock to implementation subverts the entire consultative framework.
The PSA wins concessions through collective action
Vigorous advocacy by your union has already forced the Department of Customer Service to pull back on its initial proposal.
Through our dispute proceedings before the Commission, the PSA has already compelled the Department to:
- Reduce the severity of permanent role cuts from its original draft (saving dozens of permanent public sector careers);
- Convert temporary roles into permanent ongoing positions;
- Commit that the 18 external contractor roles will be made available for matching impacted permanent public servants;
- Outperform its original stance by producing an updated Psychosocial Risk Assessment (PRAAP V2.1) and a 12-week capacity-based planning model (capping planned work at 70% capacity).
Core unresolved issues before the Commission
Despite these concessions, the PSA maintains that the proposed structure remains contested:
- Permanent jobs still destroyed: abolishing permanent public sector positions without producing source Treasury business cases remains unjustified in an agency managing an annual budget exceeding $2.5 billion;
- Casualisation by stealth: structuring enduring public platform maintenance (including nsw.gov.au) as temporary project roles ending in July 2027 directly contravenes Premier’s Circular C2025-05 (Core Work Policy) and Section 43(3) of the Government Sector Employment Act 2013;
- $5.16 million contractor disparity: Department of Customer Service admits maintaining 18 external contractors costing an average of $1,102.80 per day ($19,850/day; $5.16 million annually) while seeking to retrench permanent staff;
- Acute psychosocial workload hazards: departmental survey metrics confirm 60 percent of Government Technology Platforms staff experience acute burnout, yet Department of Customer Service confirms no platform deliverables or services will cease.
Next steps before the Industrial Relations Commission
- Submission lodged: the PSA has lodged formal responses with Department of Customer Service under Industrial Relations Commission direction No. 3, placing on record that members do not feel psychologically safe to identify individual role grievances due to acute fears of management recriminations;
- Further conciliation hearing: the dispute is listed for further conciliation before Commissioner Rizzo at 11:00am on Monday, 19 October 2026 in Hearing Room 5 at the Industrial Relations Commission in Parramatta;
- Defending permanent jobs: the PSA will demand that all temporary roles and contractor positions be converted into permanent placement slots to absorb impacted staff and will seek binding status quo orders and compulsory arbitration if Department of Customer Service fails to resolve these core issues.
What members should do now
- Review the approved briefing: read the authorised context document published on the internal GTP RMP Hub (261008 Staff Brief – Context for change).
- Do not sign disadvantageous role variations: if you receive an individual impact notification next week stating you are unmatched or matched to a temporary role, contact the PSA immediately before agreeing to any change.
- Contact the PSA: reach out to PSA industrial staff with any workload or matching concerns.
- Stand together: collective solidarity delivered our concessions to date. If your colleagues are not yet members, urge them to join today at www.psa.asn.au/join.
In Solidarity,
Contacts
Anne Kennelly Industrial Manager
PSA Member Support Centre
1300 764 679
(Quote Ref: C10021066)