Page 3769 - Week 12 - Thursday, 24 October 2013
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CIT acted swiftly in relation to recommendation 1 and has written to the individuals the commissioner was in contact with in September of this year, extending a sincere apology. The CIT acting chief executive, through internal communication, has apologised to all CIT staff, noting the impact this has had on all involved. The acting CIT chief executive has also extended an invitation to all staff to speak with her directly about the content of the report, should they wish to do so. CIT has publicly recommitted to fostering positive workplaces with healthy workforce cultures and will continue to resource and consistently apply the initiatives set out in its response to the WorkSafe report of 2012.
In relation to recommendation 4, the engagement of additional RED contact officers outside the corporate area has been accepted, and options for implementation are being considered by the CIT people committee, with recommendations from that committee expected to go to the CIT board of management on 31 October this year.
The remaining seven recommendations are relevant to all agencies in the ACT public sector that engage staff under the Public Sector Management Act and are subject to the ACT public service code of conduct. A whole-of-government response to these recommendations is being prepared and will be provided in due course. CIT will be also considering how it will adopt these recommendations as it has a momentum of action in relation to these matters.
Since the release of the WorkSafe report in 2012 and the ministerial direction to the CIT chief executive, CIT has conducted a large body of work to improve its management of workplace bullying and other issues by ensuring managers are skilled in addressing these matters. CIT has also made significant changes to enhance its workplace culture. A comprehensive progress report outlining some of this work was tabled in the Assembly on 23 August last year.
The commissioner is of the view that CIT has demonstrated genuine commitment and goodwill in its response to the WorkSafe report of April 2012 and also acknowledges the very significant efforts made by the CIT executive through the course of 2012, in collaboration with staff and unions, to address the issues identified by WorkSafe and to improve CIT’s policy and procedural framework for dealing with workplace issues.
The commissioner believes that CIT’s new framework for managing workplace issues demonstrates leading practice in the ACT public sector and that this framework “should form the basis of a template to be consistently applied across all directorates and agencies”. I am assured that the CIT acting chief executive has been very responsive to the complaints that were received by the Commissioner for Public Administration in 2012 in terms of both the recommendations regarding individual complaints and the overall recommendations of the commissioner’s report.
The commissioner noted that CIT is not overrepresented in contemporary complaints to his office and that a number of the original complaints were withdrawn “based on their positive experiences of change following implementation of CIT’s response to the WorkSafe report”. This is testament to the progress that CIT has made in improving its practices around managing workplace issues and the workplace culture.
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