At the August meeting of Independent Review Office (IRO) members the following matters were discussed:

Pay Rise

The PSA Industrial Officer reported on the pay rise – a 3 per cent increase (which includes the Superannuation guarantee percentage) backdated to 1/7/22, the Industrial Relations Commission didn’t agree to a higher pay increase, 3 per cent is only for 1 year and the PSA and other unions are discussing options with lawyers to push for a bigger pay rise and the PSA expects to report in the next several weeks.

ILARS workload issues

There was concern about the caseload of ILARS staff and the discrepancy in the number of cases where there can be as much as 50 to 200 cases difference, there is a lack of transparency in how new applications are allocated, there is also concern about how emails are re-allocated for staff who are on leave when they are allocated to other staff who are also on leave, and the possible effects on customer service of delays in responding to funding requests in emails, this is to be raised as an agenda item for the Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) on 18/8/22.

Action Items from Previous JCC

The action items from the last JCC were discussed as set out in a previous PSA Bulletin to IRO members. The action items are uploaded to the IRO Knowledge Portal so everyone has access. Members were asked to raise any agenda items they wanted the PSA to raise at the next JCC.

IRO Business Press Review (BPR)

Workshops had been held with ILARS staff, earlier been held for Solutions staff, with Resolve updates to be released on the 3rd Thursday of each month. A concern was raised that adequate notice be provided to staff of a shut down of Resolve so staff can plan their work time on those days when we are unable to work after 5pm and the expanded bandwidth goes to 10pm. Notice of more than 24 or 48 hours would be of assistance. Another concern around the BPR is the transparency of the process as little information has been provided until very recently and there has been little communication or transparency in the work of the BPR around ILARS work processes. The BPR process also has a short timeframe allowed between advice of changes and their implementation and the risk is that any feedback from staff won’t have any impact if there is not enough time to consider changes before the changes are implemented. These concerns will also be raised at the upcoming JCC.

ILARS Review

Two sessions have been held with ILARS staff and the ILARS Review of the funding guidelines is expected to be finalised by 22/10/22. Any potential impact on staffing is as yet unknown.

WHS

DCS has a COVID policy, the Terms of Reference of the WHS Committee are agreed in principle and should be finalised shortly and they will be put on the Knowledge Portal.

Christmas Shutdown

The forced shutdown over the Christmas period (which may be 6 working days) was discussed, the reasoning during COVID of needing to reduce accrued leave is no longer the case as staff are taking leave and may not want to take leave at that time of the year. This will be raised at the JCC

Flexible Working Arrangements

Changes in flex time and the compressed working week proposals were raised, flexible working agreements have been negotiated in some agencies. IRO may use the DCS agreement or have its own agreement.

Your PSA Industrial Officer has since confirmed that IRO will use the DCS Flexible Working Hours Agreement.

A bulletin in relation to the Joint Consultative Committee will be sent to members in the coming week.