Page 4370 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 22 September 2010
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The PWD report found that the low levels of employment of persons with disabilities in the ACT public service were not for want of policies. There was legislation and toolkits in place, and most were of a very good quality; it was commitment to implementation that was the problem.
Reflecting on the implementation of the 2004 ACT public service employment framework for people with a disability, it seems governments monitoring of this framework could have been much stronger. The document states in its final section that the government would hold an annual roundtable on the issue of public service employment of people with disabilities. The roundtable was to be chaired by the Commissioner for Public Administration and include the ACT Disability Advisory Council, industrial associations, service providers, key community stakeholders and people with disabilities in the ACT public service. But, according to our recent discussions with key representatives of people with disabilities, these roundtables had not been occurring for at least the last three years.
One of the PWD recommendations that the government must implement if its words are to turn into action is for there to be targets set for employment levels. Whether it be three, four or five per cent in five, 10 or 15 years, targets must be set and the government must be held to account for those targets. The government also needs clearly defined data collection protocols and an annual requirement for detailed reporting on disability employment statistics to the very highest level of government.
The PWD report found that the existing mechanism in which the ACT Commissioner for Public Administration publishes an annual ACT public service workforce profile is not stringent enough. Reporting on the level of employment of people with disabilities in the 2007-08 report was reduced to about 80 words, to the effect that little had changed since the previous year.
Our understanding of disability has changed in recent years in that we are now coming to recognise forms of episodic disability which can present through chronic or mental illness. When a person is well, they can be very well and their illness can be hard to detect, but when periods of illness prevail, their symptoms can be overwhelming. All too often, if the period of illness is not well managed, the person can find themselves unemployed, despite being healthy again soon after job loss. The Greens want to see the ACT public service employment framework for people with disabilities to recognise that the nature of episodic disability can be different to that experienced by people with constant impairment.
Over the last year I have submitted questions on notice and received a briefing about the ACT public service’s support for its staff that have chronic or mental illness. On the mental illness front, I was directed to the employee assistance program. This a counselling service paid for by the government that can provide up to three free counselling sessions for an employee. I was also notified of the Chief Minister’s Department’s participation in a beyondblue study project.
On the chronic illness front, I was directed to the ACT public service’s health and wellbeing strategies. Having looked at these documents, especially those relating to
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