Increases to pay point amounts in your new 2016 Enterprise Agreement
Dear Department of Industry, Innovation and Science,
On the surface, it appears that the new Enterprise Agreement that has been voted into place last year does not comply with the Workplace Bargaining Policy 2015, with regards to:
14. Existing pay scales are not to be modified to provide for new top pay points, removal of existing pay points, or other mechanisms to accelerate salary advancement.
It appears that your department's new EA removed the lowest salary pay point and replaced it with a new highest salary pay point at each APS level.
To this end, could you please provide those correspondences between your bargaining representatives and the APSC that document the discussion surrounding this pay point increase, and any other supporting documentation that explains how the removal of the lowest pay points and the introduction of new higher pay points was brought into line with the Workplace Bargaining Policy 2015.
Yours faithfully,
Mathew Smith
Dear Mr Smith,
We acknowledge receipt of the email below dated 24 April 2017.
Your request will be processed in accordance with the FOI Act.
You will be notified of any charges or a decision as soon as practicable.
For documents that fall within the scope of the request, it is the department’s policy to withhold:
· the names, signatures and contact details of departmental staff who are not in the Senior Executive Service (SES);
· the mobile phone numbers of SES officers; and
· the names, signatures and contact details of ministerial staff below the level of Chief of Staff.
The names and other details of SES officers will be released unless the information is exempt from disclosure.
If you require the names or contact details listed above, please let us know by return email at [email address] otherwise we will consider that you agree to that information being excluded from the scope of your request.
Should you have any queries in relation to this email, please contact the FOI team.
Kind regards
FOI team
Legal, Audit and Assurance Branch| Corporate Network
[email address]
———————————————————————
Department of Industry, Innovation and Science | www.industry.gov.au
Legal In Confidence - This transmission is intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain confidential or legally privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use or dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please notify me immediately by telephone and delete copies of this transmission together with any attachments.
Dear FOI team,
I agree to the withholding of the previously mentioned names, signatures and contact details.
Although if it is possible to replace these with these persons' roles within the department, without easily identifying the omitted individuals, I would prefer this over straight omission of these details.
That way the contextual information surrounding the role of the individuals in these discussions should be preserved.
Yours sincerely,
Mathew Smith
Dear Mr Smith,
We refer to your Freedom of Information request received by the Department
of Industry, Innovation and Science (the department) on 24 April 2017. A
copy of the request is attached for ease of reference.
Request for extension of time
The department is due to provide a decision to you in respect of your FOI
request by Wednesday 24 May 2017. Due to the timeframes involved in
undertaking searches for documents and consultation with a relevant
Commonwealth agency, the department seeks your agreement under section
15AA of the FOI Act to one week extension of time, from the current due
date, to process your FOI request. The extended decision due date would
then be Wednesday 31 May 2017.
Could you please advise if you agree to this extension, and also if you
agree to the department providing your name and contact email to the
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner for the purposes of
registering the extension.
A response at your earliest convenience but no later than Tuesday 23 May
2017 would be much appreciated.
Should you have any questions please contact the FOI team.
Kind regards
FOI team
Legal, Audit and Assurance Branch| Corporate Network
[1][email address]
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Department of Industry, Innovation and Science | [2]www.industry.gov.au
Legal In Confidence - This transmission is intended only for the use of
the addressee and may contain confidential or legally privileged
information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that
any use or dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If
you have received this transmission in error, please notify me immediately
by telephone and delete copies of this transmission together with any
attachments.
References
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1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.industry.gov.au/
Dear Ms Mallett,
I agree to the one week extension, and the provision of my contact details to the mentioned office for the purposes of registering the extension.
I look forward to the provision of this information in a timely manner.
Yours sincerely,
Mathew Smith
Dear Mr Smith
Thank you for your email below agreeing to the extension of time.
I will notify the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) this afternoon.
Should you have any queries in relation to this matter please do not hesitate to contact the FOI team.
Kind regards,
FOI team
Legal, Audit and Assurance Branch| Corporate Network
[email address]
———————————————————————
Department of Industry, Innovation and Science | www.industry.gov.au
Legal In Confidence - This transmission is intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain confidential or legally privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use or dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please notify me immediately by telephone and delete copies of this transmission together with any attachments.
Dear Mr Smith,
Please find attached correspondence in response to your FOI request of 24
April 2017.
Should you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact the FOI
team.
Kind regards
FOI
FOI team
Legal, Audit and Assurance Branch| Corporate Network
[1][email address]
———————————————————————
Department of Industry, Innovation and Science | [2]www.industry.gov.au
Legal In Confidence - This transmission is intended only for the use of
the addressee and may contain confidential or legally privileged
information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that
any use or dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If
you have received this transmission in error, please notify me immediately
by telephone and delete copies of this transmission together with any
attachments.
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.industry.gov.au/
Dear Freedom of Information team,
Whilst I respect the response given here, with regards to not wanting to disclose candid advice between the APSC and the Department of Industry for fear of making such candidness ill advised in the future, the response to this FOI request leaves the initial question unanswered; that is, how the alteration of the pay point structure in the new Enterprise Agreement was found to be consistent with the Workplace Bargaining Policy 2015.
Further, the released information seems to imply that the Enterprise Agreement was approved as consistent with the Bargaining Policy without any Ministerial exemption granted, which would be the primary mechanism for deviating from the Bargaining Policy.
Or at least, this is my reading of Document 2 where no Ministerial exemption to the Bargaining Policy is mentioned, and in fact the changed salary structure is considered in line with the Bargaining Policy.
Could I please request an internal review, with specific regard to releasing the mentioned draft GovDex Note on the Industry remuneration proposal that was attached to emails in Document 1, as this appears to be an explanatory note intended for other departments with regards to the proposed salary structure being afforded to the Department of Industry.
I am of the opinion that this note would contain (draft) rationale that would resolve the noted discrepancy between the Bargaining Policy and the approved Enterprise Agreement, and provide confidence that the Bargaining Policy is being applied fairly across all agencies.
The Note should also be less susceptible to the stated interests against public disclosure, as it would have been drafted with audiences other than the APSC and the Department of Industry in mind. And should therefore be less candid.
Alternatively, a statement from the Department and/or APSC indicating how the increased pay point structure was found to be aligned with the Bargaining Policy would be sufficient.
In that manner, the candid advice and negotiation between the departments would not need to be disclosed.
I would request that such a statement be attached to this FOI request.
Yours sincerely,
Mathew Smith
Dear Mr Smith,
We are considering your email below of 31 May 2017.
We will be in touch shortly.
Kind regards
FOI team
Legal, Audit and Assurance Branch| Corporate Network [1][email address]
———————————————————————
Department of Industry, Innovation and Science | [2]www.industry.gov.au
Legal In Confidence - This transmission is intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain confidential or legally privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use or dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please notify me immediately by telephone and delete copies of this transmission together with any attachments.
Dear Mr Smith
We refer to your request for internal review dated 31 May 2017 of a
decision made on 26 May 2017 under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 in
response to your request for access to the following documents:
“correspondences between your bargaining representatives and the APSC that
document the discussion surrounding this pay point increase, and any other
supporting documentation that explains how the removal of the lowest pay
points and the introduction of new higher pay points was brought into line
with the Workplace Bargaining Policy 2015”.
In your request for internal review you advise that as an alternative to
processing your request, a statement from ether the Department of
Industry, Innovation and Science (the department) and/or the Australian
Public Service Commission (APSC) indicating how the increased pay point
structure was found to be aligned with the Bargaining Policy would be
sufficient.
The department has considered your request and is agreeable to providing
you with the following information in response to your request for
internal review.
The department had been impacted by numerous Machinery of Government (MoG)
changes since it last negotiated an Enterprise Agreement in 2011. These
changes created significant salary disparity within the department with
the actual salary of many of the department’s employees in the
Administrative Stream not reflective of the pay points in the department’s
old Enterprise Agreement. For this reason the department was provided with
flexibility to establish a new salary scale for the department’s
Administrative Stream employees which was designed to start addressing the
significant salary disparity across the department’s Administrative Stream
employees. Similar changes were not required for the department’s Science
and Technical and Trade Measurement Officer Stream employees because those
employees were not change affected to the same extent.
When negotiating its current Enterprise Agreement, the department offered
employees in its Administrative Stream an overall pay increment of 6% over
the life of the new Enterprise Agreement. Change affected employees in the
Administrative Stream whose salary was above that set out in the new
salary scale either received only a partial salary increase, or will not
receive any salary increase at all during the life of the department’s new
Enterprise Agreement.
We trust this assists to clarify the matter for you. As the department has
provided you with this statement as requested please be advised that the
department has deemed your request for internal review of the FOI decision
dated 31 May 2017 to be withdrawn.
Should you have any queries in relation to this matter please contact the
FOI team at [1][email address] .
Kind regards,
FOI team
FOI team
Legal, Audit and Assurance Branch| Corporate Network
[2][email address]
———————————————————————
Department of Industry, Innovation and Science | [3]www.industry.gov.au
Legal In Confidence - This transmission is intended only for the use of
the addressee and may contain confidential or legally privileged
information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that
any use or dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If
you have received this transmission in error, please notify me immediately
by telephone and delete copies of this transmission together with any
attachments.
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. mailto:[email address]
3. http://www.industry.gov.au/
Dear Freedom of Information,
Thank you very much for your time and assistance.
Yours sincerely,
Mathew Smith