HP Update

Back-payment of overtime recalls

The Health Practitioner's (HP) Agreement provided for an improvement to the "Recall Payment" provisions, increasing the minimum payment from 2 hours or 3 hours.

QPSU representatives met with Queensland Health on 13 March 2009 to outline our concern at the lengthy delays in identifying and processing the outstanding recall back-payments.

As a result of this meeting agreement has been reached on a process to fast track the recall back-payments. Consequently members can expect to see all recall back-payments made by the 6th May 2009.

Threats and delays to the HP Phase 2 Evaluation Process

QPSU Health Practitioner Interest-Based Bargaining (HPIBB) Delegates, together with LHMU and Queensland Health representatives have recently been involved in dispute conferences in the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC) before Deputy President Bloomfield.

Some members of HPIBB put forward a position at the dispute conferences, requesting that detailed progress reports be provided to HPIBB outlining the outcomes of the evaluations conducted by the Work Level Evaluation Panels (WLEP) as part of the HP Phase 2 Evaluation Process.

These parties claimed that having access to the evaluation outcomes would enable HPIBB to exercise its 'oversight role'.

The position of all QPSU HPIBB Delegates is that while it is important for HPIBB to exercise its oversight role, there are significant concerns regarding any information being provided to HPIBB on more than just process issues.

Delegates have concerns that if an emphasis is placed on interim outcomes the integrity of the process could be jeopardised.

Deputy President Bloomfield handed down his recommendation following last week's dispute conference.

Unfortunately the delegates views that looking at interim results can lead to false assumptions has proven correct.

Deputy President Bloomfield whilst participating in the development of the agreed process has made the following comment in his recommendations:

"My experience has been that there is generally some element of "ambit" in any application for reclassification and a robust assessment system usually results in something in the order of about 10% of applications (sometimes more, sometimes less) being re-assessed at a lower level than that applied for. I have never seen a situation where 99% of applications have been successful in being graded at the level applied for, with a further 1% being regraded at an even higher level."

This statement ignores the fact that that this process is fundamentally different to most other reclassifications.

The Work Unit proposals are not just an ambit claim by each employee for a reclassification. It was a joint management/employee proposal except in cases where an EIA was lodged.

The QPSU would be surprised if managers were not doing their duty to responsibly develop these proposals. Diligent managers would ensure that any ambit claim was removed prior to the proposal being advanced to the Work Level Evaluation Panel.

The QPSU believes the personal views expressed by Deputy President Bloomfield based on data that may have been fundamentally flawed is unfortunate. It may be perceived as impugning the integrity of those managers who signed off the work unit proposals and those employees who have devoted so much time and energy to apply the agreed evaluation process.

The QPSU also believes the SSP representatives on the evaluation panels who have nothing to gain from the outcomes would have the experience and skills to spot and correct any "ambit" claims. After all Queensland Health chose them and trained them to ensure that they would do just that.

HP delegates at the most recent State Council passed the following resolution.

"The QPSU Heath council endorses the existing agreed "Phase 2 - Work Level Evaluation" process and opposes the development of an extra relativity tool for the inter-disciplinary review."

It is important to ensure that Queensland Health does not utilize the misguided personal views of Deputy President Bloomfield to attack the evaluation process that was agreed to by all parties.

HP How-to Guides will be organising member meetings in workplaces over the next week (prior to the next scheduled HPIBB meeting on 16 April 2009).

The purpose of these meetings will be to discuss the Deputy President's comments and measures to ensure that the integrity of the phase 2 evaluation process is not undermined.

As most members would be acutely aware the HP Phase 2 Evaluation Process was originally proposed to be completed six months ago, by 30 September 2008.

Whilst acknowledging that this exercise is a huge and complex exercise QPSU HPIBB Delegates believe any change to agreed process that has the potential to further delay the evaluation process is simply not justified. QPSU Delegates have been arguing this position in the QIRC.

All QPSU HP members are encouraged to attend these meetings to discuss the current situation and vote on an urgent resolution to uphold the integrity of the current process and call on Queensland Health to complete the process as soon as possible.