Delegates of the Rural Fire Service (RFS) Departmental Committee and PSA Industrial staff recently met with management at the Joint Consultative Committee (JCC).

The JCC serves as a formal consultation forum between RFS management and elected PSA representatives. Its primary purposes are to:

• Promote effective communication between staff and management
• Consult on workplace matters, including changes to policies, procedures, and working conditions
• Raise and resolve issues early before escalation
• Support workplace reforms that enhance employee wellbeing, fairness, and operational effectiveness.

The JCC is a key platform to ensure your voice is heard and workplace decisions are informed by staff perspectives.

Key items of discussion at the meeting included:

Award review

Commissioner Rogers noted the RFS’s commitment to working with the PSA to review the award. This process is expected to commence once the current Supreme Court wages case is settled.

Public Accounts Committee

The RFS has communicated to government that the fleet funding shortfall must be addressed. The PSA shares concerns about the capacity of the RFS to take on additional functions without extra resourcing from the NSW Government.

Employment status

The RFS is identifying ongoing contract positions to convert them to permanent Full Time Equivalent roles, expanding career options for current staff.

Mitigation Crew authorities and powers

The PSA raised ongoing concerns about mitigation crews and RFS staff not authorised under the RF Act 1997 to enter enclosed lands for hazard inspections. The RFS advised this issue is still under development.

Donesafe Safety Management System

RFS is implementing a new system to replace the current manual (paper/Jot form-based) work health and safety reporting systems.

“Clean Fire Fighter” initiative

Health and Safety are developing systems, procedures, and standards for post-incident decontamination, including mitigation crews.

Performance and conduct

Professional Standards Investigators are undertaking mediation training. However, investigators will not conduct both investigations and mediations on the same matter to maintain impartiality.

Medicals

Work is underway to consolidate various pre-employment medicals currently in place.

Inconsistent award application

The PSA raised ongoing concerns about inconsistent application of award conditions by management and supervisory staff across the RFS.

The RFS committed to following up with directorates to ensure consistency.

Recall to Duty: overtime

The PSA raised concerns that staff recalled for operational duties are sometimes not paid full entitlements under Clause 91 (Recall to Duty) of the Conditions of Employment Award. The RFS committed to ensuring full compliance by the Salaries Team.

Overtime and SAP

Currently, SAP does not automatically calculate the three-hour minimum overtime. Staff must continue using paper forms to claim where applicable.

Duty and on-call claims

Work is underway to digitise existing paper-based claim forms within SAP.

Fatigue management

A revised Service Standard is being developed to apply to business-as-usual duties, complementing the current fatigue management system focused on operational and major incident duties.

Volunteer health standards

The RFS confirmed that volunteer standards will not apply to staff, and there are no plans to introduce staff-specific health standards.

District Workload Analysis

The RFS continues developing guidelines to undertake a project reviewing workload analysis within districts.

Annual General Meeting guidelines

The PSA has completed a survey of members. Data collected will be provided to the RFS to help improve the proposed guidelines.

Volunteer behaviour and complaints framework

The PSA raised concerns that staff are discouraged from using the new Workplace Complaints Resolution framework to report matters involving volunteers.

RFS confirmed staff can report volunteers under NSW RFS Service Standard 1.1.34 – Workplace Complaints Resolution.

Leadership update

Commissioner Rogers confirmed his last day will be 4 July 2025. The PSA thanks the Commission for his engagement and contribution to the Joint Consultative Committee

JCC minutes

The PSA raised concerns the WAC minutes are placed on the intranet and not the JCC minutes. The PSA is of the view, the JCC is the industrial forum to discuss industrial issues that affect our members not the WAC. The RFS advised it would take this request on notice.