Safety & rehabilitation programs in Schools and TAFE Colleges under threat

The restructure of TAFE institutes and the Department of Education & Training includes proposals to delete and downgrade positions covering occupational health & safety, workers compensation and rehabilitation.

The cuts will leave DET/TAFE unable to meet its legal obligations.

The current arrangements are:

• Each of the 10 TAFE institutes has its own OHS/workers compensation staff, i.e no consistency across TAFEs
• In DET there are staff in each of 40 district offices working on workers compensation processing and return-to-work programs, and there is a central unit providing overall management and handling the most serious cases, there is consistency across the school system and there is a clear reporting structure

DET/TAFE are proposing a service based on the TAFE arrangements - varying number of staff (an average of three - a reduction) and different arrangements in each of 10 regional offices. They will be supported by a reduced number of staff in the 40 DET district offices (renamed school education areas).

"Incredibly, the central unit in DET is to be stripped of 13 staff. This central unit was set up because of huge OHS and workers compensations issues in the school system. There are approximately 2,000 current workers compensation cases from school staff. It is the most serious employment issue in the department," says Sue Walsh, President of the Public Service Association of NSW.

"Under the proposed structure there is no clear reporting lines, which has important legal as well as adverse management implications.

"While the information released by the department often lacks details about which functions will be done where and by what staff, it is abundantly clear that there will be inadequate staff to manage all workers compensation, occupational health & safety, and return-to-work cases in TAFE and schools.

"The OHS staff will have to concentrate their efforts on existing claims and cases. There will be no scope for preventative work. And there will be precious little management to provided direction and consistency across both services," says Ms Walsh.

The proposed DET/TAFE restructure will delete 1,170 jobs from TAFE and Education & Training support services.