Premier Nathan Rees has released a policy on how Government Agencies should manage excess employees, just days after the Mini-Budget was delivered. In the policy Managing Excess Employees in the NSW Public Sector, Mr Rees said he was committed to the fair and transparent management of employees who become excess as a result of organisational change. Mr Rees said organisational changes would result in some Public Sector employees becoming excess, and the Government was conscious of its responsibilities as a major employer of the community. “The NSW Government values the skills and experience of excess employees by giving them access to appropriate sector-wide redeployment opportunities,” Mr Rees said.
New policy explains rules
“Excess employees should also be supported with retraining opportunities, counselling, career transition services and, where appropriate, offers of voluntary redundancy.” He said as a last and unavoidable resort, an Agency may make an excess employee redundant where an alternative position could not be found within 12 months. He said the Public Sector Workforce Office was committed to the effective implementation of this policy and would monitor arrangements to ensure they were applied fairly. “This policy brings together the Government’s current policy on managing excess employees into a single up-to-date and user friendly document,” Mr Rees said. He said further consultation was taking place with Unions NSW and the Public Service Association to resolve two outstanding issues in relation to a revised voluntary redundancy scheme and “meaningful work” as it related to the retention period. “If the matters are unable to be resolved by negotiation, they will be referred back to the NSW Industrial Relations Commission for resolution,” Mr Rees said. “The Public Sector Workforce Office will shortly be contacting Agencies to attend a briefing session.” He said issues concerning the implications of redundancy payments on superannuation were still being resolved and supplementary advice would be provided on the issue. Mr Rees said the policy applied to all Public Sector Agencies and employees in the Government Service such as Public Service Departments, Non-Public Service Divisions and Special Employment Divisions but did not apply to State Owned Corporations, the Teaching Service, the NSW Police Force (i.e. police officers), Railcorp, the Rail Infrastructure Corporation and Health Services.
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