Page 2378 - Week 07 - Thursday, 4 August 2016
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Reasons that the Head of Service may end the contract of an executive or director-general are being introduced to the act in this bill, including: loss of eligibility, invalidity, misconduct, Head of Service loss of confidence in the executive, and being surplus to requirements or in the interests of the service. This may sound very severe, but up until now the government has not had the ability to move executives, even when their role has become redundant.
The bill also loosens an employee’s attachment to particular offices or positions. I suspect that this was one of the most contentious areas with the CPSU and one of the areas that needed the balance to be just right. The bill does seem to have hit that balance, in that no-one can be just moved. As for executives, for any staff movement to occur, there must be full discussion.
But what this does mean is that when someone has left a position—they may be on extended leave or acting in another position—the government has been stuck in a situation whereby that employee owns that position and no-one else can be given that position. So we have ended up with a situation where people end up acting in that position and then someone is acting in their position and so on. This has given the government very little flexibility which, for a small government, can be unwieldy and inefficient. On the flipside, the bill also ensures that contracts and employment can continue if that is required.
Going hand in hand with enhanced mobility is the introduction of secondment to and from the ACT public sector. Of course, secondment within the public sector—for example, from our public service to one of our commissions or authorities—is already able to occur. Employees coming into our public service from other governments or sectors are taken to be ACT employees in relation to public sector values and principles.
Secondments may also be from our ACT public service to another government or to the private sector. Whilst on external secondment employees do not need to adhere to the ACT public sector values and principles and instead are free to undertake tasks as directed by their seconding employer. This is an innovative reform which will benefit both our public sector and the employees who work in our government but I think also the private sector in terms of having the potential for that mobility, the skill sharing and the understanding of different perspectives and values.
I will return to the issue that will be addressed in the amendments so I can make my remarks now. The key part of these amendments is the changes to the clauses in the bill that were recently publicised in the Canberra Times and labelled as “dob in a colleague” clauses. I was very surprised to see this interpretation. The bill was tabled over 18 months ago and the details were worked through with the CPSU over the past year and a half. I had understood that all stakeholders were happy with this version of the bill and so I was surprised that this interpretation was identified so late in the discussion. Given how many people have worked on this legislation, the extensive consultation that has occurred and the work of me and my office in looking at this, we had not understood this interpretation either.
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