Performance Development Plans – PDP

Your Delegates and PSA staff met recently with the Department to address the concerns with the PDP’s that are subject to a PSA Ban – see a copy HERE

The discussions were quite positive, the Department acknowledged the concerns raised and are working to address them and a further meeting will be held soon.

The Career Plan section and Performance Development Career Planning Tool are exempt from the ban to allow members to include and formalise developmental goals.

The PSA strongly encourages members to complete the Development section of the PDP.

Members will be updated after the next meeting.

Workload Planner Development

Work is continuing with the department on the development of a new user-friendly Workload Planner (WLP) with the agreed goals of safe and sustainable workloads for caseworkers that can be managed within their contractual hours.

You would appreciate that this is quite a large undertaking that will take some time to complete. Your Delegates with the assistance of PSA staff are committed to ensuring the WLP is developed in the context of the Department’s mandate to ensure the safety, welfare and wellbeing of its casework staff as well as vulnerable children, young people and their families.

While this work continues we would like to remind all members of the PSA direction to use the current workload planner and not accept or allocate cases beyond a worker’s contracted hours or agreed paid overtime hours. Any case that you cannot work on during a four-week Workload Planner period should NOT be allocated to you. This means that if a child/case has zero activity hours in your Workload Planner, that child is not to be allocated to you on ChildStory.

Flexible Work Hours Agreement – Discussions re-start

Members will recall that early last year discussions were held with the Department who are seeking to have a single flex agreement for the department based on the existing Department of Justice Agreement. A copy of both a previous PSA Bulletin and the Justice Agreement can be found HERE and summary of the differences between the agreements HERE.

These discussions will re-commence shortly after a considerable break due to the covid-19 pandemic.

PSA members will have the final say in any proposed Flexible Working Hours Agreement by way of electronic ballot.