Understanding the monster (and some bad news for EHOs)

BPB accreditation of council staff

We have had an overwhelming response to issue 10 of the depaNews e-mailed to members last Friday. We did try to avoid sending out all of the 12 separate documents the BPB sent us but it seems clear that to get a real understanding of the implications of this proposal, the summary document may not be enough.

So, included in this issue is:

• the proposed Experience Report for A1 - Link
• the proposed Experience Report for A2 applicants relying on qualifications and experience - Link
• the proposed Experience Report for A2 applicants relying on experience alone - Link
• the proposed Experience Report for A3 applicants relying on qualifications and experience - Link
• the proposed Experience Report for A3 applicants relying on experience alone - Link
• the proposed Experience Report for A4 applicants relying on experience alone - Link
• the proposed Experience Report for A4 applicants relying on qualifications and six (6) months experience - Link

Some members found that the summary document did not convey the extent of the experience proposed to be a requirement by the BPB and a requirement that many councils will struggle to meet. The proposed reports "relying on experience alone" are the critical ones.

We still need the answer to the question whether your council can continue to do what it's doing now with its existing staff under this new regime or not. And we need it to sally@depa.net.au by 5pm on Thursday 8 October.

UWS looks at dumping Environment and Health degree program next year

 Just when EHOs thought it was only their building colleagues dealing with the aggravation, the University of Western Sydney has indicated that it is looking at dumping the Environment and Health degree program with no further intake after this year.

If they choose to do so, that will mean that there will not be a degree qualification provided within New South Wales. We think that's unacceptable.

We don't really want to get involved in the debate about higher education and what sort of courses universities should be offering. We understand that universities have funding issues and that as businesses they need to jam people into the big popular courses like business and law (and don't we just need more lawyers and business degrees) but it is clearly a serious issue when a University looks at dumping a course without any real consideration of its impact on industries employing environment and health professionals.

There has not been any consultation with local government as an end user of this qualification. So, every council which employs people in an EHO ole needs to respond to the threat and take every step available to remind the University that it is the only New South Wales degree and if it doesn't continue to be offered by the University of Western Sydney will create difficulties across an industry already struggling to find enough officially qualified EHOs.

There is an e-mail circulating from the Local Government Unit of the NSW Food Authority urging that submissions be e-mailed to an e-mail address at UWS. Unfortunately this is the wrong address.

Submissions should be e-mailed to change-feedback@uws.edu.au.

And we urge you to send a copy of that to:Head of School, Prof John Bartlett at j.bartlett@uws.edu.au

For completeness, you can send a copy to be Program Adviser of the existing course Rosemary Nicholson at r.nicholson@uws.edu.au. If you need to talk to anyone about what the University is proposing, Rosemary Nicholson is the contact.

Ian Robertson

Secretary