Public Sector Enterprise Agreement

In reply to Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (24 July 2015). (Estimates Committee B)

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for the Public Sector): I have been advised:

Employees and agencies covered by the South Australian Public Sector Wages Parity Enterprise Agreement: Salaried 2014 are required to comply with the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment's 'Determination 7: Management of Excess Employees—Redeployment, Retraining and Redundancy'.

The determination requires a chief executive or agency head to undertake the following steps.

1. When organisational change is proposed which is likely to result in a reduction of roles, duties or positions and may result in employees becoming excess to requirements, a consultation process must be undertaken.

2. Prior to considering whether an employee is excess to requirements (and formally declared excess), chief executives, agency heads or delegates will consider whether there are suitable alternative roles, duties or positions that are available within the relevant agency, or likely to become available within a reasonable time and into which the employee could be transferred to, with or without the provision of additional training for the employee.

3. An employee will be declared excess where the duties assigned or allocated to them or the role or position at their substantive classification/remuneration level is no longer required and it is not practicable to transfer to or assign the employee to other duties commensurate with their substantive remuneration level within a reasonable time (with or without the provision of additional training for the employee).

The process and time period of identifying alternative duties or positions at an employee's substantive classification/remuneration level within an agency varies.

The determination does not require chief executives or agency heads to formally record the number of employees who are involved in that process. This enables the chief executive or agency head to consider their respective resources and workforce plans.

When a chief executive or agency head formally declares an employee excess, the details of that employee are entered onto the 'Excess Employee Database'. The database is a 'live database' recording the actual number of employees formally declared excess and the number will fluctuate.

The Office for the Public Sector is responsible for the administration of the database, and public sector agencies are responsible for entering and ensuring the information on the database is up-to-date.

The variability of duties and positions in an agency and across the public sector would require an administratively complex system to collate the number of employees who, as a result of organisational change, may be declared excess. To ensure the accuracy of the information, public sector agencies would need to input current information on individual employees and their status as circumstances change for each individual employee.