Page 4501 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 19 November 1991
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11. What steps have been taken to review community health centres; how much recurrent funding is spent on health centres in (a) North Canberra (b) Belconnen; (c) South Canberra; (d) Woden; (e) Weston Creek and (f) Tuggeranong.
12. Is it the case that the lions share of health centre funding is spent in North Canberra and Belconnen; if this is so, how can the Minister justify this disproportionate expenditure.
Mr Berry - The answer to Mr Humphries question is:
1. All ACT Health Centre ASO staff have been through a Work Redesign exercise as required under the ACOA/APSA 2nd Tier Agreement. The exercise has now been completed. One of the outcomes of the exercise has been the upgrading of most ASO positions.
2. Given the workload imposed by the process it was not possible to do all centres at the same time. The order in which they were done was decided by management and the Work Redesign Team after preliminary discussion with each health centre to determine their readiness to undertake the task.
3. Narrabundah and City Health Centres were the last 2 Health Centres to have their Work Redesign Report completed. The work groups themselves were responsible for working through and completing the task, and each Health Centre took a different length of time for the process.
4. The agreement under the ACOA/APSA 2nd Tier Agreement was that each work group should go through the work Redesign process individually. Each Health Centre had particular concerns about the way the clerical work was done and therefore quite separate recommendations. Upgrading of the ASO positions was not the main purpose of Work Redesign but a secondary benefit.
5. Upgrading will date from the signing of the instrument by the Delegate, once the Work Redesign Report has been tabled and ratified at the Joint Steering Committee. Management and the Union agreed that the only exceptions would be if 3 or more Joint Steering Committee meetings were cancelled, and then the date of effect would be the date on which the respective Executive Director approved the report.
6. Each Health Centre has now produced a report justifying the upgrading of AS01 staff to ASIA, and AS03 to ASIA. Additionally 2 Health Centres have justified the need for an AS03 position based on the complexity of the work. All centres are not identical and therefore each centre was required to just i fy the upgrading.
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