Welcome to the first online annual report by the Fair Work Commission.
This is an initiative which we hope will make the information we provide more accessible
to the community.
This past year has been a very busy one for the Commission.
We’ve seen the introduction of a new anti-bullying jurisdiction; the conferral of additional
functions on the Tribunal, as well as the continuation of our change program, Future
Directions.
The new anti-bullying jurisdiction commenced on the first of January this year.
But well before the new jurisdiction came in, the Commission was hard at work with its
key stakeholders to develop an appropriate case management model to ensure that the new
jurisdiction worked effectively.
We also published a range of information materials on our website about the new jurisdiction
including a bench-book to assist the parties.
I am pleased to say that most of the cases that we’ve dealt with have been successfully
resolved by conciliation facilitated by the Commission.
We will continue to review and improve our processes in this important new jurisdiction.
Among other changes the Fair Work Amendment Act provided the Commission with an important
new function—to promote cooperative and productive workplaces and to prevent disputes.
We’re developing a comprehensive strategy to enable us to effectively implement this
new function.
At its heart it’s about assisting the parties at a workplace level to create a more productive
workplace and one that’s more adaptive to change.
It’s about dispute prevention, rather than settlement.
It’s about responding to the wishes of parties when they seek the Commission’s involvement
and about facilitating a better outcome for all parties.
There’s a case study in this year’s annual report about Sydney Water that provides you
with an example of our work in this important and growing area.
The past 15 years has seen a significant change in the type of matters that come to the Tribunal
and also in the nature of the parties that appear us.
Increasingly, we are dealing with individual grievances and with self-represented parties.
15 years ago two thirds of our work was collective dispute resolution, where the parties were
experienced players—they understood the Act and the Commission’s processes.
Increasingly we’re dealing with self-represented parties who have limited experience with the
Tribunal.
We have an obligation to explain how the Act works and how our processes work to self-represented
parties.
Over the past 12 months we have developed and implemented a comprehensive change program
called Future Directions to better meet the needs of the parties who now appear before
us.
The focus of Future Directions is on delivering public value in four key areas.
Promoting fairness and improving access.
Encouraging efficiency and innovation.
Increasing accountability.
Improved productivity and engaging with industry.
By December 2013 we had successfully implemented all 25 initiatives in the initial phase of
the Future Directions change program.
These initiatives included a range of new bench-books dealing with unfair dismissals,
general protections, and the new anti-bullying jurisdictions.
These bench-books provide in simple language a summary of the key principles from the most
important decisions in each of these jurisdictions.
They provide important information to assist, particularly, self-represented parties, in
understanding the cases in which they are going to be appearing in.
We have also launched a new website with an easier navigation structure for particular
users including employees, employers, organisations and small business.
We will continue to develop and improve the website in response to feedback we receive
from the users.
For unrepresented parties and first time users coming to the Commission can be a daunting
experience.
With that in mind, in 2013 we launched a virtual tour of the Commission.
This is intended to give parties—particularly to unfair dismissal matters—an insight into
how their matter would be heard and determined by the Commission.
By giving parties this sort of information we hope that it will make our processes more
accessible and also increase their understanding of the Commission’s processes.
We intend to extend this initiative to other jurisdictions such as general protections
and anti-bullying over the course of the next two years.
Future Directions is an ongoing change program.
In May this year we launched a further 30 initiatives that we intend to implement over
the course of the next two years.
Details of those initiatives can be found in our annual report.
They are all directed at making the Commission a more efficient, fair, accessible and accountable
national institution.
In last year’s annual report we announced that we had introduced two important timeliness
benchmarks—one dealing with reserved decisions and the other dealing with the approval of
agreements.
I’m pleased to report that we are continuing to make improvements in these areas and have
consistently shown improvement across a range of these benchmarks.
Not all of the timeliness benchmarks are meeting their target.
We will continue to work hard in this area to improve our performance.
We have also introduced new timeliness benchmarks particularly in relation to dealing with appeals
both in terms of the time taken to get an appeal heard and the time taken to deliver
a decision in relation to an appeal.
The introduction of these benchmarks and an increased focus on the efficiency of the appeal
process has improved our performance in this area.
All of these initiatives provide greater certainty for parties.
They can lodge an application with confidence that it will be dealt with in a timely way
and we will continue to focus on this important area of our work.
As public institutions, courts and tribunals depend on the support of the community for
their legitimacy.
Accountability and transparency are vital to ensure that support.
We will continue to review our processes and the services we deliver to ensure that we
are meeting the needs of the community.
We will also continue to report on our outcomes and on our timeliness to ensure that we are
accountable to the community that we serve.
The past year has also seen some changes in the composition of the Membership of the Commission.
We’ve seen the retirement of Commissioner Macdonald and the resignations of Deputy President
Parsons and Expert Panel Member Allen.
We’ve also seen the appointment of Deputy President Kovacic.
I thank those that have left the Tribunal for their work over many years and I welcome
Deputy President Kovacic to the Commission.
I’d also like to thank our key stakeholders for their contribution to the work of the
Commission, particularly in the implementation of the Future Directions initiatives.
And finally, I’d like to thank all of our Members and staff for their hard work, commitment
and dedication and for helping make a great institution better.