The Development and Environmental Professionals' Association (depa)

Welcome to the depa website. We are an industrial organisation representing professional employees working in local government in New South Wales in a variety of jobs in the fields of environmental health, public health, building and development control and planning.

We take a broad approach to our responsibilities to members and give advice and assistance on professional issues as well as industrial and workplace issues. We understand what members do at work and that allows us to take a holistic approach. Read more about us...

This site will keep you up-to-date with union news and the diverse range of workplace advocacy issues we deal with daily. We have made it easy for members to contact us with online forms.

Bankstown wins HR Award – depaNews December 2010

Golden dog turd – December 2010

No real surprise in 2010 HR awards

Dammit, we were hoping for a bit of anxiety, some doubt to keep the contestants on their toes and the bookies uncertain. What we got was Bankstown, a clear winner with daylight second. A funny state of affairs for a Council which is historically "Labor" and with an ALP Mayor.

We have had an unfortunate history with this Council. In our December 2005 issue, we ran a competition about whether there was "anywhere worse than Bankstown" and found that there wasn't.

In summarising the year we listed:

• Sacking a member who lost his licence when they could have easily accommodated other travel arrangements.

• Breaching the Award by establishing a Consultative Committee with other people not agreed to by union delegates.

• Breaching the Award by not having a Salary System that provides annual reviews or progression based on the acquisition and use of skills.

• Sacking another member for losing his licence when they could have easily accommodated other travel arrangements.

• Making changes to the organisation structure, and refusing to have a meeting of members but offering individual meetings where management can stand over individual employees.

• Refusing, unsuccessfully, to allow a member part-time work (even though they enticed him to come and work there on the basis that he could do this) to accommodate his family needs.

We excluded what used to be known as City Approvals where they had "a more benign managerial style" and we could have added the second dispute in 2005 mentioned above about the punitive approach to access to overtime but we were trying to be gracious and full of goodwill because it was the end of the year.

In 2006 were able to settle all these disputes after the intervention of the Council but in 2010 we were back in the Commission three times.

The first under section 106 for a member suspended without any good reason and eventually settled with a protective Deed of Release that doesn't allow us to say any more than the dispute was resolved. Even though we can't tell you why, we love settling disputes like this. That’s depa 1 – Bankstown City Council nil.

The second, when the Council acted unreasonably by directing a member of ours about to go on leave for six weeks to remain for another nine weeks to reduce sick leave accumulation and where the other 12 or 13 people who received a similar letter the following day were given time and an option of agreeing to something else. This was a dispute where the Commission eventually directed the Council to withdraw that direction and to properly consult with employees if they propose to change long-standing HR practices. That’s depa 2 – Bankstown City Council nil.

The third, about how they deal with the flexibility of an employee's kids growing up and wanting to return to full-time work. And that's depa 3 – Bankstown City Council nil.

We have had more disputes with Bankstown than any other council ever and we had more disputes with Bankstown this year than with any other Council. And they’ve lost the lot.

Congratulations to Bankstown City Council - we look forward to continuing our relationship with you in 2011.

Robbo's Pearls...

Je ne regrette rien

Lucky Edith Piaf, not regretting anything. Who wouldn’t like to live their life like that. Here are some of our regrets over the last 33 years:

The first historic consensus opposing the introduction of term contracts for senior staff was in 1991, and included the employers’ organisations as well as the predecessor of Local Government Professionals (sic), the Institute of Municipal Management. We regret the employer’s organisation abandoning that position, and the history of antagonism to getting rid of the concept of senior staff by LG Professionals (sic).

We regret that LGNSW, up until they responded to the recommendations in Operation Dasha, participating in the unfair dismissal of more senior staff and particularly general managers than anyone else, and probably collectively, more than everyone else.

The role of the Cabinet Office in 1998 rolling the recommendation made by the Local Government Minister at the time Ernie Page, in the five year review of the Local Government Act, that term contracts should be removed because of anticipated flowback into the State SES - which was nonsense. And the decision of the Cabinet that fell for it.

The role of the Office of Local Government, and their SES staff who had been provided with permanent tenure by the Government Sector Employment Act 2013 (something that in the local government we knew nothing about) not flowing a similar provision for senior staff in local government when the SES had been a model for that arrangement in 1993.

OLG’s historic defence of their standard contract and assertion in a variety of investigations, including Operation Dasha, supporting “the “termination without reasons clause... in the event that there was a breakdown in the relationship between the Councillors and the general manager”

And in taunting local government that if they ever delivered a consensus view between the employers and the unions, they would deliver that through the Minister, and then failing to do so.

ICAC in 2002 after investigating Rockdale Council and making findings about corrupt councillor behaviour made observations about “the importance of protections for local government employees involved in the development process”, and then did nothing about it.

ICAC in July 2003, considering correspondence from depa identifying “corruptibility issues that arise from term contracts” after both Rockdale and Tweed, and doing nothing about it, and in a meeting with us in July that year having some pious wanker reject our concerns which he asserted “to some extent that’s the obligation of public service”.

The ICAC 2016 report in Operation Farra at Mid-Western Council observed “the ‘no reason’ provisions in the standard contract, however, could create an uncertain employment environment for a general manager. The Commission’s concern is that such uncertainty could be used to improperly influence the action of a general manager” and, then did nothing about it.

And in Operation Dasha ignoring the submission depa had made about problems with planning and the employment relationships of senior staff, with recommendations for change, that included repealing section 340. We should have been called to give evidence.

We were not able to reach agreement between the unions and LGNSW on transitional arrangements for senior staff similar to the employment protections in section 354D of the Local Government Act continuing senior staff on “the same terms and conditions that applied to the staff member immediately before the transfer day.” This had been the unions’ collective position for a number of months until abandoned in a meeting depa could not attend on 19 March, when an agreement was made by everyone else for what is in the current arrangements.

And obviously I regret spending an hour and a half at the dentist that day and being unable to argue against that happening, and forgetting the first rule of politics - “be there”.

How it could happen that this legislation was carried without dissent, with the support of the Liberal/Coalition Opposition and all Independents, who for most of those years opposed doing anything about this, but who nevertheless subsequently found an interest in doing something about unfair employment practices for senior staff and thought they should trumpet as if it were a revelation, and their idea.

Nevertheless, we record our appreciation and acknowledgement of three people and their critical role in moving LGNSW towards this position in 2021 - President Linda Scott, CEO Scott Phillips and Director Workforce and Legal, Adam Dansie, notwithstanding his awful advice given to Campbelltown to unfairly legitimise disadvantage against a group of employees, predominantly our members.

The LGEA has participated in support over this time, and the USU which, while they were late to the party, they brought a connection to Government, without which this would not have happened. And the new CEO of OLG, doing his best to get over the abject failures and connivance of the past.

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depa Golf day 2015