Too much serious stuff to be too frivolous

BPB releases post version 3 documents

Throughout the development of the BPB proposals to accredit Council employees, the Board has been at pains to insist that they did not want to create a monster and that they wanted a relatively simple process which would rely upon councils writing to the Board, recommending the level at which they would like their existing staff accredited, and the Board doing nothing more than endorsing the request.

This seemed hard to believe. The BPB has an Assessment Committee charged with the responsibility of reviewing applications and even the documents released last week continued to refer to the review and assessment role.

It would seem improbable that some of the people who have already put their hands up to be part of the 20 or so available to constitute the Assessment Committee won't want to "review" applications in the true sense of the word. Private certifiers have always sneered at the qualification levels of council employees, so it would require some change of heart on their part to do nothing more than check that the boxes are filled in and the application is signed.

This is how BPB Chair Sue Holliday and CEO Neil Cocks assured us on 17 December that the system would work. Together with depa Vice President Andrew Spooner and Committee Member Jamie Loader we had a long discussion and these assurances were provided without any qualification. Both the Chair and the CEO insisted that the role of the Advisory Committee would be similar to that of a counter clerk when a DA is filed: are all the boxes filled in, is everything signed? If they are and it is, then the accreditation sought by the Council will be provided.

That was Sue and Neil's guarantee and we are happy to accept it.

However, in our submission to the BPB on their version 3, we suggested that if the BPB could live with parallel assessment arrangements for private certifiers and council employees for a two year period (and now the BPB is proposing that this operates from a three-year period from March 2010) then we will continue to press for this system to operate permanently. We will do this in discussions with the Minister for Planning in January.

After the usual colourful theatrics of NSW Labor a couple of weeks ago, the Minister for Planning is Tony Kelly. The new Minister comes to the job with considerable experience of local government - most recently as General Manager at Wellington Shire before taking up his position in the Legislative Council. He is a friend of local government and fully understands the impact that any imposed regulatory regime can have on the attraction and retention of staff and the costs necessary to councils to seek and continue accreditation.

The BPB documentation has been available and you can use this link to see the specific responses the BPB made to our submission on Version 3.

We left the meeting with Sue and Neil on the basis that we would seek feedback from members and talk to them again after the exhibition period concludes on 12 February. We urge you all to read the documentation and work out how it will affect you and your council. And if you think there is some sense in continuing the parallel accreditation arrangements indefinitely, you should tell them.

The BPB correctly says that they have taken many of the industry’s concerns on-board and that the three-year implementation period reflects this. They also say that if you don't want to work anywhere but the council where you are now (or immediately before March 2013) you won't need to do anything more than the automatic assessment process based on the recommendation of your council.

We continue to prefer the model in the Food Act which provides for the NSW Food Authority to accredit/authorised council officers to work under the Food Act. Nothing more complicated than the council making a recommendation to the Food Authority to allow its employees to be authorised officers and the Authority simply agrees. This process recognises that it is up to councils to make these judgements.

We would like to see this system operate instead of trying to slide employees across to the same criteria for private certifiers in 2013. What do you think?

UWS responds to complaints about killing off the Environmental Science Course

 As foreshadowed in November's depaNews, Vice President Andrew Spooner and Committee Member Les Green attended a workshop convened by the University in response to local government’s negative reaction to the killing of the full-time Environmental Science degree. Well, as Andrew and Les observed, it was "consultation" like the Department Planning likes: the decision already made and firmly held, a brief period of advice but no change in attitude.

The workshop outlined possible options to improve the course to better align with employment opportunities as well as the skill and knowledge requirements of graduates.

The full-time course is axed and depa will be a part of a stakeholder group established by the University to redefine/realign the external component of the course to develop graduates that have the necessary skills to work as an EHO in local government.

The practical issues with this development are almost overwhelming - the part-time course can take up to 6 years to complete and not many councils are employing trainees in giving them the time to complete the course anyway.

All students currently enrolled in the degree programs will have the opportunity to continue their studies and graduate with a degree in which they are currently enrolled.

The Bachelor of Natural Sciences (Environment and Health) program will be offered in the distance education mode in 2010, while an update and reconfiguration of the program for 2010 and beyond is being conducted.

depa will continue to be involved in future workshops to ensure the course provides the necessary skills the future local government EHOs.

83 councils dispute concluded - except for Liverpool

 Justice Staff in the NSW Industrial Relations Commission has finalised depa’s dispute about superannuation/TRPs by privately arbitrating a settlement at Ballina, Blue Mountains and Wyong.

At the time this process was concluded, there were 103 councils which had agreed to pay the lot and only a handful (Ashfield, Lake Macquarie, Randwick and The Hills) that had made their employees contribute towards it.

The private arbitration for one LGEA member at Ballina had been conducted a couple of weeks earlier but the Judge had decided not to make a decision because discussions were continuing at Blue Mountains, Wyong and Liverpool. Liverpool had not agreed to participate in the process of private arbitration at this stage but was happy (if indeed Liverpool ‘s General Manager Phil Tolhurst and HR Manager Vikki Lee could ever be described as happy about anything) to let the Commission to resolve the dispute and then assess that decision.

At Ballina, the Commission recommended that the employee not contribute anything and that the total cost of the increased employer's contribution would be paid by the employer.

Unfortunately, Blue Mountains and Wyong were a different situation. Both councils participated in the private arbitration having brought to the Commission agreements reached with five of the six employees affected at Wyong and one of the two employees affected at Blue Mountains.

Having determined that the employee should not pay the increased employer contribution at Ballina, it is reasonable to expect that the Commission was influenced by the local agreements (made without our involvement) that employees were prepared to pay something.

It is also significant that the Commission decided that the two employees (who were depa members and the subject of the private arbitration) at Blue Mountains and Wyong, should not pay as much as their colleagues had agreed to pay. It's a pity their colleagues agreed to pay anything or we may have been looking at a Ballina settlement at those two councils as well.

Liverpool has now advised that they won't agree to either of the formulas used by the Commission at Blue Mountains or Wyong. They want the dispute arbitrated. But we know, because we have an exchange of e-mails, that there was an agreement made between the five employees at Liverpool (where we have one member affected) and but the Council subsequently reneged on it.

We will be returning to the Commission in January for further conciliation based on this agreed settlement.

All in all, this has been an extremely satisfying result but regrettable that local settlements prejudiced our ability to secure the Ballina settlement at Blue Mountains and at Wyong.

And it's even more of a pity that Liverpool belligerently continues to contest this issue for the five long-serving employees affected. But it was Liverpool, of course, where the HR Manager said at the start that if the decision to contest this meant that long-serving employees left the Council, then so be it. Mustn't it be nice working at Liverpool with benign HR attitudes like that?

And it was also at Liverpool where the General Manager told us during a discussion that he wasn't a member of the Defined Benefits Scheme - having taken (bad) advice a few years ago to leave the Scheme when he became the first general manager in NSW to sign up to the Department of Local Government Standard Contract. A contract which, if Phil had been patient or if he had taken advice (he could have even phoned me and I would have given him the advice for nothing), everyone in this dispute recognised that the compulsory employer contribution to super is paid by the Council. He moved to the accumulation scheme.

The GM must think if it's good enough for the general manager to take bad advice that has an adverse effect on his retirement income, it has to be good enough to those employees working below him.

Will Local Government Super survive in 2010?

 We sent an urgent e-mail to members on Monday 14 December revealing secret plans of the NSW Government to merge Local Government Super with the Energy Industry Super Scheme. This was an idea promoted by the Energy Scheme without the consent, knowledge or support of Local Government Super.

Originally discovered on Wednesday 9 December by UnionsNSW Secretary Mark Lennon and, the secret initiatives, originally raised by EIS had been the subject of a number of meetings between the EIS/Future Plus CEO Richard Powis and officials of Treasury. The problem was that the Treasury Officials believed that Powis was speaking on behalf of both EIS and LGS. We can't imagine how they got that impression.

The LGS Board met on Wednesday 16 December and grilled Powis about his role. He confessed that he had attended "not ten meetings" and that he had been involved in, and had seen final versions of, a new Trust Deed, a new Constitution and the draft Regulation which was scheduled to go to the Executive Council to become a proclamation taking effect on 1 January and creating this new fund.

The LGS Board expressed its lack of confidence in Powis and has called for his resignation.

The Board, having had advice from Senior Counsel, also resolved to require the Treasury to supply a range of information (now that Powis had told us that it existed) and to do so by close of business on 22 December.

If the documents are not provided by that deadline date, other things will irretrievably occur that won’t be disclosed here before they happen.

Often it is easy to smell a rat - but there was plenty of rat-like behaviour going on behind the scenes that remained undetected until Mark Lennon found out about it last week and proceeded to inform the unions affected. We should express our thanks to Mark and also to USU General Secretary Ben Kruse for his spirited defence of the LGS (notwithstanding that the USU remains "not opposed in principle" to the merger) and its right to be consulted and agree to such a course of action.

The proposed merger was removed from the agenda of Executive Council on 15 December but, despite rumours that the Treasury or the Treasurer will soon write to everyone committing that no merger will proceed without the agreement of both Boards, there is no guarantee yet in writing.

The four unions affected met this morning with UnionsNSW Secretary Mark Lennon. ETU General Secretary Bernard Riordan, USU General Secretary Ben Kruse, Martin O'Connell from the LGEA and I tried to reach some agreement about slowing the exercise down to allow proper consultation. The four unions could not even agree that Mark Lennon could write to the Treasurer saying that we all asked for nothing to proceed without proper consultation in February.

The problem is that while the local government unions want things slowed down to have a say, the ETU does not. The EIS Board last Friday carried a resolution supporting amalgamation with LGS and agreeing to supply to the LGS Board an investigation they had carried out into possible merger which had access to information about LGS that should not have been disclosed. This all goes to the conflict of interest of having a CEO who is both the CEO of each class and the ideas.

Where the LGS decided to have our own CEO in 2007, APRA the regulator, thought that it was good governance and welcomed the development. The Energy Industry Scheme did not do this.

At this time of the year this is not the right time to have an argument about whether or not the Energy Industry Scheme is a suitable merger partner. Less than half the size of Local, they are about the least attractive of merger options. And no one has yet said that the merger is a good idea to Local.

We should remember that the five reasons why we separated from State Super and First State Super in the first place are still very important considerations.

They were summarised in the urgent advice to members (we apologise for the format) e-mailed on Monday 14 December as follows:

"There was no adequate local government representation on the Board of either fund, we believed we could get better investment returns and reduce costs having our own fund and while local government’s obligations were fully-funded, those of the NSW Government were not. It was impossible even in 1997 to find the status of financial obligation and whether or not there was a surplus or deficit in the Defined Benefits Scheme."

The threat of compulsory amalgamation still exists but, as time goes on, it is dissipating.

We hope that the LGSA and the USU join us and the LGEA in opposing the merger. That will be good news for those of us who like a specifically local government fund, undistracted by other industries (particularly in industry involving coal-fired generators), investing responsibly and with competitive investment returns.

This will be the big issue for 2010.

Councillors behaving badly

In September we told the story in depaNews about the poor old blokes at Parramatta Council lumbering around as if the 1993 Local Government Act didn't exist: carrying resolutions about staffing and the performance of staff when that is clearly the role of the General Manager. And has been since the introduction of the 1993 Act: a piece of legislation which is now more than a decade and a half old but we strangely still describe as the "new" Act.

Parramatta Lord Mayor Councillor Paul Garrard

In November we passed on the inspirational news that Lord Mayor Paul Garrard (pictured above) had forbidden managers from dressing casually on mufti day in case he wanted to summon them to his opulent and Regal Mayoral Chambers and they needed to be appropriately dressed to show their respect. Down on your knees, commoners!

The two industrial disputes that depa filed (which had involved bans being placed on certain activities by members) were discontinued in the Industrial Relations Commission on 17 December. Steps had been taken by management to protect the integrity of the planning system without the dabbling of dilettantes and amateurs, councillors were going to receive training about their responsibilities under the Local Government Act and everything was going to be very post-1993.

But not so fast. At a meeting of the Council on 14 December the general manager had sat meekly while the Council carried a resolution delegating to the Lord Mayor that he "retain and instruct" an investigator to review a recent tendering process. This is the same General Manager who sat meekly by while the Council had earlier carried two inappropriate (and incorrect) resolutions about the quality of development control being provided by the Council .

If the meek really are to inherit the earth, then giant slabs of it will be heading towards Parramatta "CEO", Dr Peter Brady.

We have written to the General Manager about this. Sometimes general managers need to be a bit tough with their councillors, telling them what the law actually says about who is responsible for managing staff and that the Local Government Act makes it abundantly clear that it is not the Council, it is the General Manager.

Some general managers are quite prepared to do so. Parramatta general manager, or CEO as he likes to be known, Dr Peter Brady is pictured below driving past the Industrial Relations Commission at the time we were telling the Commission that Dr Brady told us that both he and the councillors understood their roles and the disputes were concluded.

Parramatta CEO Dr Peter Brady cruisin’

 Management excellence awards arising from the superannuation dispute held over the 2010

 We foreshadowed in the November depaNews that we would be providing awards for management excellence in anticipation that the superannuation dispute would be concluded. As it isn't, those awards will stand over until 2010. We apologise to anyone disappointed. Yeah, that includes you Noah.

A time of goodwill - make sure you get some

 On behalf of the Committee of Management I extend to you all the compliments of the season and our wishes for a great end to 2009 and an optimistic approach to a hopeful and low carbon 2010.

depa office closes

 The depa office will be closing at noon on 24 December and reopening in a relaxed and January sort of way on Monday 4 January. Clearly there is some rest for the wicked.

We hope you enjoy your break as much as we will.

 

Ian Robertson

Secretary