Page 18 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 15 February 2011
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a range of employment-related issues including merit selection, probation, promotion, transfer and temporary transfers, long service leave and maternity leave, redeployment and the portability of entitlements.
In brief, the bill addresses the following matters. Probation of permanent appointees to the service is amended to allow for the termination of an employee who does not undertake a requisite medical assessment and to provide the power for a chief executive to extend the period of probation where a further period is required to undertake an appropriate assessment of an employee’s suitability for permanent appointment to the service.
Probation provisions are also amended to reduce the period following appointment, after which the appointment of the employee may be taken to be confirmed. Most significantly, the bill provides for the appointment of an employee to be confirmed at any time during the probationary period where the chief executive has determined that the employee is suitable for permanent appointment.
Provisions relating to the composition of joint selection committees and management initiated joint selection committees are updated to align with agreements and moved to the public sector management standards consistent with the role of the standards in providing operational level detail.
Mechanisms for the transfer of individual employees and groups of offices and employees are streamlined to clarify the capacity of the Commissioner for Public Administration and chief executives to make management initiated transfers at an individual and group level dependent on the circumstances.
Prescription relating to the transfer of officers has been separated from prescription for the promotion of officers so that the provisions for the two different mechanisms may be more clearly expressed.
Temporary employment provisions are amended to allow for the extension of fixed-term engagements of more than 12 months up to a maximum of five years where engagement of the incumbent was made in accordance with prescribed merit requirements. This amendment responds to the changing nature and structure of some areas of the service where there is an increased need to create positions for a specific short to medium-term initiative.
The bill removes various mobility provisions introduced at the time of self-government. The key features of these provisions include the portability or recognition of prior service for all accrued entitlements for Australian public service officers moving to the ACT public service and the waiving of probation.
Portability of entitlements for Australian public service officers will continue to be maintained through revised recognition of prior service prescription in the public sector management standards. Additionally, recognising that the ACT public service is an employer it its own right, staff moving from the Australian public service will be subject to the same probation requirements as all new appointees to the ACT public service.
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