Agreed solution to chronic s353 misunderstanding

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Published: Wednesday, 16 July 2025 16:52

Councils (meaning GMs and/or HR) have been misunderstanding the obligations under section 353 Other Work almost since the Local Government Act was made in 1993. We’ve had disputes since then (twice with Sydney City!) with lots of councils where someone insists that anyone who wants to do anything other than their Council job, needs the GM’s approval. Bossy, moi?

For those of you interested in the history of this - how the declaration of everything was deliberately rejected by the Department of Local Government/NSW Government because it was unnecessarily invasive of employees’ privacy – here is a document showing that history.

It is also patronising because the decision to require everything to be declared assumes individual employees are unable to make that decision themselves. It’s a misuse of section 353 which clearly establishes that it is the employee’s obligation and that the only work that needs to be declared, and approval sought, is work that relates to or conflicts with the employee’s Council job.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a misunderstanding, or prurience (wanting to know things that are none of the employer’s business) or patronising, but LGNSW and the three unions have always believed that it was the employee’s obligation to declare specific kinds of work only. That has been a consistent view since the first Exposure Draft Bill in 1992.

Now the matter is clear and unequivocal. The LGNSW Board resolved, and this week signed off on a Joint Statement on Other Work, which will be circulated to their HR network this afternoon, and more broadly in their General Circular next week.

Here is the Joint Statement, we encourage our delegates and members generally to embrace it, to raise it with their Consultative Committee to have uniformity in the industry without the ignorance, prurience or patronising.

That includes councils which have tried to reject this advice and ignore our correspondence, who will not be able to any longer. Yes, that’s you, Laura.