Crown Lands NSW Restructure

Central Council 10 April 2006

Report adopted

The Department of Lands and the PSA have reached an agreement which allows the Department's restructure of its Crown Lands Division to proceed, after a suspension of the process for many weeks while members disputed the grading outcome (job evaluation) of the positions of Team Leader in the new proposed structure of the Division.

Agreement has been reached that the positions of Team Leader, Land Administration and Team Leader, Land Development remain graded as Departmental Officer (Clerk) Grade 7/8, while that of Team Leader, Environment, remains at the higher level of Departmental Officer (Clerk) Grade 9/10, with an understanding that all these jobs will be reviewed in 12 months from the implementation of the new structure.

The Department of Lands last year initiated a restructure of its Crown Lands Division, and established a Crown Lands Restructure Implementation Committee on which management representatives sit with the Executive of the PSA's Department of Lands Departmental Committee and delegates from each region of Crown Lands.

Early this year, some members employed by Crown Lands in some of the regions began to express some concerns about the evaluation and grading of the positions of 'Team Leader', which form the second tier in the organisation's proposed new structure.

As a result, successive meetings have been held by the PSA with the Department to address our members' concerns. A somewhat protracted process, as a result of the refusal of management to accept the legitimacy of our members' concerns resulted in an agreement that the job evaluation organisation, Mercer (Cullen, Egan and Dell) would re-evaluate these positions with input from both the Department and the PSA, including our members concerned.

The outcome of Mercer's discussions with each party and then its re-evaluation of the positions was that they remain as previously determined by the Department of Lands job evaluation panel. Members concerned have accepted this outcome with the promise of a review after 12 months. Internal recruitment to these positions is now proceeding.

At the same time, draft position descriptions for jobs in the new structure anticipated to be evaluated at Grade 5/6 or below have been put out to staff for comment.