Local Government under attack as BPB and NSW Health vie for title of
World’s Worst Consultation
BPB folly to accredit council employees to start today!
Well, when depa met with Neil Cocks and Sue Holliday on 17 December last year and agreed that we would meet again after the public consultation period had concluded in February, we left the meeting thinking that we would meet again, after the public consultation period had concluded, and before the BPB actually did anything to implement anything.
In our submission to the BPB of 12 February 2010 we even started by saying:
"When Andrew Spooner, Jamie Loader and I met with you on 17 December last year we agreed that we would meet again after the consultation period had expired for further discussions.
We are keen to do this." And then, at the end of the letter:
"I look forward to seeing you and your President in March."
There wasn't a peep from the BPB, nothing from Neil and nothing from Sue to tell us that no, we wouldn't be meeting as we had agreed, that they are sick of talking to us because this is all about dismantling building control in local government so, who cares! They would rather king hit us from behind.
So, it was quite a surprise to receive a Special Edition of BPBulletin at 2.30pm on Friday afternoon, with a beaming Sue Holliday presenting the President’s Message that from the next working day, "the Building Professionals Board will be able to issue certificates of accreditation to employees of Councils to carry out building certification work." And Sue really was beaming, she must have been thrilled. At last.
Immediately we wrote and asked to meet. We expect to do so this week but we won’t hold our breath.
The March issue of depaNews was going to provide a copy of depa’s submission on version 3 and, depending when we sent it out in March, maybe even a report about our meeting. Maybe they got sick of talking to us.
Here is a quick summary:
1. The BPB can accredit Council employees from 1 March 2010.
2. Councils will have until 1 September 2010 "to have a sufficient number of accredited certifiers available to undertake all councils building certification work".
3. In After 1 September 2010 "any building certification work undertaken on behalf of councils must be undertaken by either a Council accredited certifier or a private accredited certifier or the Council can apply for an exemption from Minister."
4. Council employees will be accredited at the level recommended by the Council during a three-year transition period.
5. When the transition period ends on 1 March 2013, anyone involved in certifying, whether they are employed by a council or the private sector, will have to satisfy the same requirements. Except …
6. Accredited certifiers working for a Council will not be required to be assessed against the requirements of the Accreditation scheme provided they renew their certificate each year and continued to work on behalf of a council.
The short answer is that if this is all too much of a hassle or, if you are one of those blokes getting late in your working life and hoping to continue doing what you're doing now, then you will be able to do so as long as your current Council recommends the appropriate level of accreditation for you and you keep working in local government.
This is a very broad summary of a number of documents which includes CPD requirements, Council and employee obligations etc and these are available on the BPB website.
We had three concerns expressed in our formal submission. Firstly, we were sceptical that the BPB really would automatically provide the level of accreditation sought by councils without trying to erode it. Secondly, if parallel arrangements for accreditation are acceptable for a transition period, then they should continue either indefinitely or there should be a formal review to establish whether there needs to be any different sort of accreditation arrangement for council employees. And thirdly, there was insufficient information about the circumstances under which the Minister would provide an exemption for councils to not comply.
It is unclear whether the first issue was dealt with, the second clearly was but the third remains imprecise.
A phone call to the Council Accredited Certifiers Hotline: 1 300 001 619 at 5:02pm found that the hotline was unstaffed but Jonathan Lynch hadn’t gone home yet but all he was able to say was that there were no guidelines yet about how councils would get exemption but any application would have to be made in writing and the case argued.
Why don't you ring them up and ask a few questions yourself?
A further special edition of depaNews will follow when we have sufficient detail about the Scheme and after we have met with the BPB CEO and President to be briefed and ask questions about the operation of this ill-conceived and ideologically-driven regime.
Remember the front page of the tabloid form of depaNews in July 1996 with a picture of Craig Knowles and the headline “Knowles plan to end council Building control”?
There's a new Public Health Bill - and it's been a well-kept secret
Clearly NSW Health has learnt some lessons from DUAP/ DIPNR/the Department of Planning when it comes to consultation.
We know that in October 2008 NSW Health announced a review of the Public Health Act which would include, amongst other things, "providing a stronger and more focused role for local government".
depa Vice President Andrew Spooner is our representative on the Strategic Liaison Group: a group established by NSW Health to make sure that local government is fully consulted and to provide feedback on the Public Health Act. You would have expected that the SLG was precisely the sort of group that would be a conduit to consultation with the industry.
On 2 October 2008 Andrew wrote asking them to clarify the role the Strategic Liaison Group would take in the review of the Public Health Act.
This e-mail went unanswered and nothing was heard until he received an e-mail from the Deputy Director of the South Sydney Western Area Health Service on 22 February advising that the draft bill had been released for a two-month consultation period and that it was not intended for the Strategic Liaison Group to have any role at all.
In an email exchange, which involved depa’s complaint about the process, NSW Health advised that they believed "the optimum arrangements for local government consultation" was with the LGSA. Sadly, while they believe that might be the optimum consultation, apparently they didn't really intend to consult with anyone else.
It is essential that depa and the Strategic Liaison Group be involved in this consultative process. After all and strictly speaking, the LGSA is a representative body of councillors and not generally of local government and there are many councils where elected people and managers resent having to provide resources to carry out any responsibilities under the Public Health Act. They are the last people to be the "optimal arrangements" for consultation.
And while the Institute of Environmental Health has a role, the reality is that depa has more members carrying out responsibilities under the Public Health Act in councils than any other organisation. They have to talk to us.
We will keep you in touch.
And the Attorney General’s Department is not doing a bad job of not telling people what is going on either
Cripes, what's going on with the NSW Government! Well, apart from the obvious stuff, even the Attorney General's Department didn't think it necessary to talk to local government about something known as the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 No. 52 (GIPA).
This piece of legislation, apparently carried by Parliament but not yet with an intended starting date, establishes greater access to NSW Government information but, because it also extends to local government, looks like it's going to require "returns of the interests of councillors, designated persons and delegates" in councils to be publicly available on the Council's website.
Bloody hell. We have already had problems with lunatics from the community marching into a Council office and asking for access to the pecuniary interests of designated persons, including health, building and planning professionals. We know that there is a correlation between people who want to scour through this sort of material and people who subsequently try to make life difficult for staff. It mightn't happen often, but it happens often enough to be a concern.
depa has been involved in disputes with councils where we have encouraged the keeping of records of those people who want access to this information. This doesn't prevent access, it simply means you can keep an eye on who or what wants it.
This piece of legislation hit the deck with no announcement, no consultation with anyone and, it appears from advice from the LGSA when they rang to ask about it, with no real awareness that anyone should talk to councils or organisations representing councils or council staff.
The legislation comes from the Office of the Information Commissioner, which is part of the Attorney General’s Department. There is no Commissioner yet but it is expected that this will happen soon and that some time after April, this legislation will operate and affect local government.
depa has written to the LGSA asking for an urgent briefing of employer and employee organisations by the Office of the Information Commissioner so that we can work out how it will impact on the privacy of our members. The Office is happy to do this and we expect this will happen in the next fortnight.
While we are dealing with this sort of stuff, don't forget that section 739(1) of the Local Government Act does provide protection and privacy where designated people, who are required to have their pecuniary interests recorded in the publicly-accessible register, can request that any information "that would disclose or discloses the person's place of living if a person considers that the disclosure would place or places the personal safety of the person or of members of the person's family at risk" be omitted from the PI Register.
Every now and again we do remind members of the ability to use section 739 to protect your privacy and it seems timely to do so now.
As far as we understand it, and we have only a peripheral understanding at the moment until we are briefed by the Office, section 739 of the Local Government Act is not affected by GIPA and that protection of privacy still remains.
At last, some movement on the 2010 Local Government (State) Award negotiations
depaNews has foreshadowed impending negotiations and tried to encourage members to be realistic in their expectations about what is likely to come out of negotiations for a new Award to operate from 1 November 2010.
Our dispute with 83 councils last year over increased superannuation reinforced our view that the industry is under-funded, that many councils are effectively trading insolvent (and if they were public companies their directors would be prosecuted under the Corporations Act) and that a long history of rate pegging has eroded councils’ ability to adequately fund employee salaries and conditions. Put simply, the industry is not cashed-up and even if it were, it shows little interest in improving the quality of working life of employees and even of paying market rates to attract and retain staff.
So, a bit of tidying up, an economic adjustment like we are familiar with from the past and maybe a few cheap or cost-free improvements, and that is probably that.
In February’s depaNews we invited feedback from members on the sort of things you would like to include in the Award. It should come as no surprise to learn the majority of submissions were more focused on entitlements to not be at work (by being able to take longer periods of leave, more flexible working arrangements etc) than anything else. It's a strange irony that trying to make work more satisfying often hinges around ways of spending less time there.
The Committee of Management on 17 February endorsed a nine-point log of claims (see below) which was forwarded to the LGSA and the other unions on 25 February and the USU forwarded its log the following day.
The USU has also filed a dispute which will be listed before Deputy President Grayson on 3 March to set up a process to have the Commission assist with the negotiations in a way that will allow a new Award to operate later in the year.
2010 Log of Claims Local Government (State) Award - Part 1
1. Economic/cost-of-living adjustment increase.
2. Increase superannuation contribution for employees not in a Defined Benefits Scheme to 15% per annum - an additional 3% paid by the Council and 3% paid by the employee on a co-contribution arrangement.
3. Leave reserved or negotiated settlement if implications clear, on compensation, training commitment and logistic matters to do with accreditation of council staff by the BPB.
4. Amend clause 25 to provide clearer financial commitment to training generally which cannot be overridden by budgetary concerns.
5. An option for employees (and solely at their discretion) to take annual and long service leave at half pay/double time.
6. An ability to salary sacrifice pay to buy additional leave similar to the Career Break Scheme for NSW Health Service Nurses and Midwives in clause 56 Career Break Scheme of the Public Health System Nurses and Midwives (State) Award. (The Scheme allows employees to defer 20% of their salary for four years and be paid it in the fifth year.)
7. Private Motoring Component CPI increase for the vehicle allowance in the Award and an agreement for some mechanism to provide annual increases if the Award is to be longer than 12 months
8. Increase paid maternity leave to 18 weeks by providing non-gender-specific leave of 18 weeks for the "primary carer" and a period to be agreed for the "secondary carer".(It’s 7 weeks at Newcastle)
9. Expanded commitment to providing more family-friendly work with greater encouragement for reduced working hours for family purposes - for example, four-day work weeks as well as more encouragement for traditional part-time work.
USU firms up its opposition to any merger of EIS and LGS - but do we smell a rat?
The USU Executive has now resolved to oppose any merger which has not been supported by plebiscite of members of both funds. As far as we are concerned, that will see the end of the proposed merger by EIS and LGS.
depa supports this and the Committee of Management resolved on 17 February:
- To note the good news contained in the 18 February correspondence from the USU opposing any merger without a plebiscite supported by members of both funds.
- To express depa’s concern about the narrow focus of investigations carried out by the EIS and the USU - and shortly to be carried out by the LGSA. This misses the point.
- To call upon the USU and the LGSA to acknowledge the inadequacy of the narrow focus and the omission of critical positive aspects to LGS remaining a stand-alone Fund and, in relation to the LGSA, to not proceed with their review without expanding its focus to acknowledge the fundamentally different philosophies between the investment strategies of the two funds and the advantage of a local government-specific fund.
- Calls for all shareholders in both funds to acknowledge the breakdown in communication and trust between EIS and LGS, the irretrievable breakdown in relations between the fund's representatives on the Future Plus Board and urges the immediate rationalisation of ownership of FuturePlus by either EIS is selling its share to LGS (our preferred option) or LGS selling its share to EIS.
The LGS Board voted unanimously in December to call for the resignation of EIS/FuturePlus CEO Richard Powis. At the LGS Board meeting on 24 February, EIS Chair John Eisenhuth spoke to the Board to try and find a way through the current fracas but, without looking back to the past. You know, the past when they dishonestly tried to smash LGS.
Of course, he would say that but, the more he was pressed by the four member representatives, the clearer it became that one of the reasons he didn't want to talk about the past, was that he was protecting people. Clearly, more people knew about the secret attempted coup than were prepared to acknowledge it. But who was Eisenhuth protecting, surely no-one on the LGS Board?
Six members of the Board either questioned or make comments critical of the EIS proposal (the four member reps, Monica Clavijo and John Beachcroft from the USU, Martin O'Connell from the LGEA and me and two of the employer representatives, Sam Byrne and Col Sullivan) but two members of the Board didn’t say anything - the LGA representatives Leo Kelly and Beverley Giergerl.
That does seem odd doesn't it, given that everyone voted to call for Powis' resignation in December? Maybe it doesn't seem so odd because the secret plans for a new board proposed that the Chair of the merged fund be a representative from local government employers. The plot thickens…
Ian Robertson
Secretary
