Stage 3 Aged Care Wage Rise Implementation Considerations for Providers – Webinar

[Opening visual of slide with text saying ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘Stage 3 Aged care award wage rise implementation considerations for providers’, ‘Stephanie Kaiser, Assistant Secretary, Aged Care Workforce Branch’, ‘Christopher Crisafi, Director, Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman’, ‘Mark Richardson, Assistant Secretary, Residential Care Funding Reform Branch’, ‘Rachel Blackwood, Assistant Secretary, Home Support Operations Branch’, ‘Mitch Docking, Director, Aged Care Workforce Branch’, ‘health.gov.au/aged-care-workforce’, ‘18 November 2024’]

[The visuals during this webinar are of each speaker presenting in turn via video, with reference to the content of a PowerPoint presentation being played on screen]

Stephanie Kaiser:

Good afternoon everyone and thank you all for attending today’s webinar. I’m Stephanie Kaiser, Assistant Secretary, Aged Care Workforce Branch at the Department of Health and Aged Care and I’ll be co-hosting this event with my colleagues Mark Richardson, Assistant Secretary, Residential Care Funding Reform Branch, Rachel Blackwood, Assistant Secretary, Home Support Operations Branch, and Mitch Docking, Director, Aged Care Workforce Branch. We’ll also have a presentation from Chris Crisafi from the Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman.

I’d like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners and custodians of the lands on which we are virtually meeting today. My colleagues and I are based in Canberra on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people. I would like to pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging and I’d also like to extend that acknowledgment and respect to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people who are here with us today.

There will be a Q&A session at the end of the webinar. You can lodge your questions in the Slido box on the right hand side of your screen. We’ll attempt to respond to as many questions as possible at the end of the webinar. All questions and answers including ones that we may not get to will be available after the webinar and emailed to you. Questions submitted during the registration process have also been considered for the Q&A session.

There is no option for attendees to turn on their video or microphone during the webinar including during the Q&A session however this webinar will be recorded and uploaded onto our website along with the slides.

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Overview’, ‘Stephanie Kaiser’, ‘Assistant Secretary’, ‘Aged Care Workforce Branch’]

Today’s webinar will provide an opportunity to go into more detail about implementation arrangements for the award wage increases occurring on 1 January 2025. We’ll also cover the release of the latest Aged Care Worker Wages Guidance.

At the outset this presentation does not include information on aged care registered and enrolled nurses. The Fair Work Commission is still considering award wage increases for aged care nurses. Funding to support any increases for these workers will be subject to a future decision of Government.

Some of you will already have attended webinars or seen information on program specific changes that will be occurring following the Fair Work Commission’s decision to increase award wages for many aged care workers from 1 January 2025.

As a result we don’t propose to repeat in detail information already provided through other webinars.

So just some background on the Fair Work Commission decision. As you are no doubt aware by now the Fair Work Commission has decided to make classification changes and increase award wages for many aged care workers. These changes are on top of the 15% wage increases introduced from 30 January 2023. These increases and classification changes will take effect from an employee’s first full pay period on or after 1 January 2025. Some employees will also receive further award wage increases on 1 October 2025.

As set out on the screen these workers are covered by the Aged Care Award 2010, the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award 2010 and the Nurses Award 2020. Workers included under the Aged Care Award are known as either general employees which covers administration staff, maintenance staff, laundry hands and others – note that some workers, laundry hands, cleaners and food services assistants are being reclassified from general level 2 to general level 3 which means that evidence from a small number of indirect care employees that they sometimes undertake direct care work – or direct care employees which covers workers employed under the direct care category are receiving increases to their award wages and many will also have classification changes.

Assistants in nursing working in residential aged care will also be reclassified to this award as direct care employees.

Under the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award the classifications for home care employees will be separated from disability care workers under the new Schedule F created for home care employees providing services to aged care clients. Home care workers are being reclassified to ensure there is a contemporary classification structure that supports progression based on worker qualifications and the employer’s operational requirements. Most home care workers will also receive an award wage increase. Assistants in nursing working in home care will also be reclassified to this award under Schedule F. Chris from the Fair Work Ombudsman will talk more about classification changes shortly.

On 17 September Minister Wells announced $3.8 billion in Government funding to support the award wage increases for aged care workers that will apply from 1 January 2025. As you can see this slide provides an overview of the Government’s $3.8 billion investment in aged care wages which is made up of $3.3 billion in funding for residential aged care, $356.4 million for Home Care Packages Program, $39.8 million in additional grant funding for the Commonwealth Home Support Program, and $52.4 million for providers of specialist aged care programs including NATSIFAC, Indigenous Employment Initiative, Short Term Restorative Care and select providers of multipurpose services as well as the Transition Care Program.

There is also $19.6 million for the Veterans Home Care and Community Nursing Programs and $40.5 million for historical leave liabilities.

The Government funding to support award wage increases will be delivered over two phases to match the timing of changes in award wage pay rates. Many direct care workers in residential aged care and home care will receive wage increases over two tranches with the first tranche commencing on 1 January 2025 and the second tranche on 1 October 2025. General workers in residential aged care will receive the full award wage increase from 1 January 2025.

I will now hand over to my colleague Chris to discuss the classification changes that the Fair Work Commission has made as part of their stage 3 decision.

Christopher Crisafi:

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Classification changes for aged care workers’, ‘Christopher Crisafi’, ‘Director’, ‘Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman’]

Thank you Stephanie. Hello everybody. My name is Chris Crisafi and I’m a Director of Policy at the Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman. Great to be with you all here today and thank you to my Departmental colleagues for having me along.

The new classification structures that have been introduced into the Aged Care Award and the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Award – which I’ll refer to hereon as SCHADS which I’m sure you’re all familiar with - for aged care employees which required some employees to be reclassified. Employers need to ensure that they’re using the right classification for each staff member from 1 January 2025.

The Fair Work Commission has provided a translation schedule in each determination on how employees are to be translated into the new classification structure for each relevant award. Providers are required to ensure employees are classified correctly under the new award classification structures when passing on the related pay increases. This also includes employers who have an Enterprise Agreement in place as they need to ensure that the minimum hourly rates of pay in their agreement are at least in line with the new minimum rates in the relevant award.

I will talk through two classification change examples in a moment but I would note that for detailed advice about translating specific employees I’d encourage you to please contact the Fair Work Infoline on 13 13 94. That’s the Fair Work Ombudsman’s Helpline if you’re unfamiliar with that. As I can’t speak to specific examples or complex matters today. I also would note that the Fair Work Ombudsman’s online pay calculator which you may have seen before includes the new rates of pay and the new classification descriptions for both SCHADS and the Aged Care Award and you can access those rates from 1 January next year by entering a calculation date on or after 1 January 2025.

So firstly for an example from the SCHADS Award. So the updated classifications in the SCHADS Award mean that from 1 January 2025 a home care worker in the aged care sector with three months’ experience will be reclassified as home care employee level 2. Currently these employees can be classified as home care employee level 1. Employees who are reclassified from home care employee level 1 to home care employee level 2 pay point 1 will see their hourly rate increase from $28.94 per hour to $31.64 per hour from the first full pay period on or after 1 January 2025 which amounts to an increase of $2.70 per hour.

The next is an example from the Aged Care Award.

From 1 January 2025 workers who were previously classified as aged care employee direct care worker level 4 will be reclassified as aged care employee direct care level 3 qualified. This will result in the hourly wage of reclassified workers increasing from $31.24 to $32.14 from the first full pay period on or after 1 January 2025 which amounts to an increase of 90 cents per hour.

As I mentioned earlier if you need tailored assistance I would encourage you firstly to contact our Fair Work Infoline on 13 13 94. Employers may also have access to advice from their employer association or industry peak body. So that’s another great place to get information and advice as well. If you are seeking general information you can consult our dedicated web page at fairwork.gov.au entitled the ‘Aged Care Work Value Case: Changes to awards’ for further information. This page will also link to our Fair Work Ombudsman pay calculator which we call the pay and conditions tool. And you can also from that web page find a link to our downloadable pay guides that apply from 1 January 2025. So those are a static downloadable guide that you can access as well.

I will now hand back to the Department of Health and Aged Care to discuss the wage increase in the context of residential aged care funding.

Mark Richardson:

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Residential aged care funding’, ‘Mark Richardson’, ‘Assistant Secretary’, ‘Residential Care Funding Reform Branch’]

Great. Thanks Chris. Good afternoon everyone. As Steph mentioned at the start my name is Mark Richardson and I am the Assistant Secretary of the Residential Care Funding Reform Branch.

As an overview the Government has provided an additional $3.3 billion to fund the Fair Work Commission Aged Care Workers Value Case Stage 3 decision for hotelling and residential aged care. This was delivered in September and October this year respectively for an increase in the hotelling supplement to $12.55 and an increase in the AN-ACC price to $280.01. New rates are smooth to account for delivering this funding before the award wage increases on 1 January 2025.

This funding is to support the increase in award wages for direct care workers which will be phased in over two tranches with the first tranche commencing on 1 January 2025 and the second tranche on 1 October 2025, and ancillary aged care workers who will receive the full award wage increase from 1 January 2025. The in scope workers include personal care workers, assistants in nursing, recreational activity officers and ancillary workers including administration staff, laundry hands, cleaners and food service assistants.

For more information on these changes use the QR code on this slide to see our recent webinar on residential aged care funding. This web page includes a recording of the webinar as well as the slides and script. The page also has a questions and answers document the Department has prepared to answer questions raised before and during that webinar.

I’ll now hand over to my colleague to discuss the award wage increases in the context of Home Care Packages.

Rachel Blackwood:

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Home care funding’, ‘Rachel Blackwood’, ‘Assistant Secretary’, ‘Home Support Operations’]

Thanks Mark and good afternoon everybody. My name is Rachel Blackwood and I’m Assistant Secretary of the Home Support Operations Branch. I will be taking you through the processes we have developed to give effect to the wage increases for providers of Home Care Packages and then for providers of Commonwealth Home Support Program services.

Firstly on Home Care Packages the Government has allocated $356.4 million to increase the Home Care Package subsidy. This subsidy increase will support providers to pass on the wage increase without reducing services to care recipients so that care recipients continue to receive the same care and services they have previously been provided. 

The subsidy increase will be implemented in two stages, a 0.93% increase starting from the 1st of January 2025 and then a 0.44% increase from 1 October 2025 subject to the passage of the new Aged Care Act and the Support at Home Program. Further advice on the implementation of the 1st October wage increase will be provided next year. Some workers may be paid above the award wage already but if not they will need to be paid the new award rates commencing on the 1st of January 2025.

We know that some providers may need to review their pricing models and increase charges for care and services delivered by workers receiving the wage increase. To assist you with reviewing your pricing models the daily subsidy rate from the 1st of January 2025 has been published on our website. When prices for care and services are increasing because of these wage increases providers are responsible for discussing the increased pricing changes with care recipients. These discussions should include an explanation of the changes being made, what the increased price includes and when the new pricing will start. Care recipients must consent to any reasonable pricing changes and consent to these pricing changes being updated in Home Care Agreements before the 1st of January 2025.

Letters are currently being sent to all care recipients about the subsidy increase and the changes that may need to be made to their Home Care Agreements. These letters include a fact sheet and copies of the letters were published on our website on the 13th of November. Information for providers on setting, publishing or changing prices and updating Home Care Agreements is also available on the Department’s website. A fact sheet for providers on the subsidy increase which includes the daily subsidy rate from the 1st of January is also available on the Department’s website.

Now turning to the Commonwealth Home Support Program funding. For CHSP we intend to run a grant opportunity for providers that are affected by the Fair Work Commission’s decision. The process will be like previous Fair Work Commission CHSP grants with funding being available from the 1st of January 2025. The Grant Opportunity Guidelines will outline what’s required for providers to apply for this funding.

As part of the application process the Department will be seeking evidence of staffing against funding claims. Evidence will also be required for providers who have subcontracting arrangements and are planning on claiming these on behalf of subcontracting providers. Unlike the last Fair Work Commission CHSP grant round we will not be releasing early payments for CHSP providers under their base agreement during 2024-25 unless a provider is significantly impacted by the increased costs.

I will now hand over to my colleague to discuss the wage increase in the context of the historical leave liabilities funding.

Mitch Docking:

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Historical Leave Liabilities’, ‘Mitch Docking’, ‘Director’, ‘Aged Care Workforce Branch’]

Thanks Rachel. My name is Mitch Docking. I am the Director in the Aged Care Workforce Branch in the Department. Today I would like to take you through the approach to funding historical leave liabilities followed by accountability measures for the wages funding.

So like last year we established a historical leave liabilities grant to fund eligible providers in support of the increased cost in historical leave liabilities resulting from the Fair Work Commission Stage 2 decision. So like in Stage 2 we will be running another grant opportunity to support providers in paying eligible aged care workers to take their leave entitlements at the new higher rates of pay resulting from the Stage 3 decision.

So eligible leave for this grant will include recreation leave, long service leave and personal leave.

This grant opportunity will operate over two tranches. Tranche one will fund the impact of the 1 January 2025 award increases and tranche two will fund the impact of the 1 October 2025 award increases.

This grant opportunity recognises that accumulated leave liabilities for aged care workers can increase when award wages increase and also in response to program funding to support higher wages.

For Stage 3 the Government has decided to fund the increased cost of historical leave liabilities in the following way. 25% for residential aged care providers and 50% for all other eligible aged care providers.

This decision means a change to the level of funding that residential aged care providers will be eligible to apply for compared with Stage 2. The AN-ACC price and hotelling supplement incorporate the costs of labour that provides funding for wages and on costs including leave and leave provisions. The Government has still decided to fund a proportion of these increased costs in leave liabilities to ensure these providers are not disadvantaged due to the impact of the Stage 3 decision. We note there will be a variation between providers on the relative size of their liabilities and we want to ensure that these providers have funding to support their workers to take leave.

And now onto the application process. We will be improving the application process for the Stage 3 grant opportunity.

The tranche one grant opportunity is currently planned to open in early 2025 and we’ll include a workforce capture template to support providers to provide the correct data for assessment.

The workforce capture template will support applicants to provide HR and financial information at the employee level to demonstrate the increased costs of historical leave liabilities for eligible workers whose wages increased due to the Stage 3 decision.

This includes information around the eligible aged care workers whose wages have increased as a result of the tranche one increase, the relevant eligible award under which they are employed and the classification level which the increases apply to, the value of the eligible leave liabilities from 31 December 2024 and the new value of the eligible leave liabilities from the date the increase took effect. And then finally the total amount of funding that is being claimed under the application.

Once your application for the historical leave liabilities grant is completed we expect providers to retain HR and financial reports used to complete the workforce capture template for two years. This is an important point as we will be undertaking an audit process on a sample of providers to ensure that information provided in the workforce capture template and applications accurately reflects the HR and financial reports utilised to determine the grant funding.

Further information on the grant opportunity including how to apply will be available shortly. I encourage you to keep an eye on GrantConnect.

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Accountability on aged care wages’, ‘Mitch Docking’, ‘Director’, ‘Aged Care Workforce Branch’]

I’ll now move on to the accountability arrangements for aged care workers.

So similar to the approach for the Stage 2 15% increase in awards we have developed a guidance document to support providers in passing on wage increases to their workers. This guidance has been developed in consultation with the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, the Health Services Union, the United Workers Union and the Aged and Community Care Providers Association. This guidance document was only published on the Department’s website late on Friday the 15th of November. So I encourage you to visit our website to access the guidance. Dedicated communications for the sector to support the release of the guidance will commence this week.

So the guidance sets out the Government's key expectations on the treatment of the Government’s Stage 3 funding intended for workers including that the Government’s wages funding is to be passed on to the benefit of workers and on costs by increasing employees’ wages by at least the amount set out in the pay tables, that the usual enterprise bargaining should continue to occur with periodic wage increases drawn from the provider’s revenue, and engagement between unions and employees to negotiate the wage increases and translation to the new classifications and for providers to communicate these changes to the affected workforce.

To support the Government’s expectation on funding the guidance includes pay tables that set out the new award rates and the difference in dollar terms between the current award rate and the new award rate by classification that will commence on 1 January 2025.

The Government expects providers to pass on at least these amounts to the eligible workers.

These pay tables also deal with the classification changes by mapping the old classification structures to the new classification structures that will commence from 1 January 2025.

Providers should not be limited to these increases and can pay over and above the amount set out in the guidance.

The Government also expects the usual enterprise bargaining to occur with any negotiated or scheduled increases agreed in existing EBAs to be passed on.

The guidance document applies to providers of residential aged care and home care packages due to the funding mechanisms of uplifting subsidies and supplements to fund the Stage 3 decision.

So further on accountability we have retained the existing accountability mechanisms from Stage 2 that will now support the implementation of funding for Stage 3.

Providers of residential aged care and Home Care Packages will continue to attest in the Quarterly Financial Report that all funding provided to implement the Stage 3 wage increase is passed on to workers and on costs.

We will continue to closely monitor providers’ attestation responses and publish these responses in the Quarterly Report. It’s important to note in Quarter 3 2024-25 the attestation question will now apply to the increased funding for the Stage 3 increase. The attestation question will no longer apply to the past year of funding for the Stage 2 increase.

Providers may attest yes if they pass on all funding allocated for the Stage 3 wage increase consistent with the guidance and the pay tables. We expect providers to attest no if they have not passed on the funding and increased wages as per the guidance.

For providers receiving funding through grant processes they will be required to complete a financial declaration to confirm that funding has been used to pay increased wages including the amount of funding expended.

Further on accountability since Quarter 4 2022-23 the Quarterly Financial Report has collected information on hourly wage rates including the lowest, average and highest wage rates for direct care workers. This information will continue to be collected for personal care workers and home care workers. Additional reporting for general aged care workers such as laundry workers, cleaners and food services assistants in residential aged care will not be required at this stage.

We will continue to refer providers to the Fair Work Ombudsman for review when they report hourly wage rates that fall below the national minimum award rates.

We will also continue to monitor providers’ expenditure on labour costs and identify trends in spending over time. Sector trend will be published through the Quarterly Financial Snapshot. And finally service level expenditure on labour and wages will continue to be published as part of the broad suite of expenditure reporting on My Aged Care.

I will now hand back to Steph.

Stephanie Kaiser:

[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Questions’]

Thank you Mitch for your presentation. We’ll move onto Q&A now. So people will see on the right hand side of the screen we have the Slido. So if you have any questions that you haven’t put in there yet please do so now. We will commence with the first question for Rachel.

Q:        Rachel when will the Minister’s letter to Home Care Package clients go out?

Rachel Blackwood:

Thanks Steph. I’m pleased to advise that the mailout is happening as we speak. This time it’s a letter from Michael Lye to all 289,000 care recipients. So the letter has been published on our website last week and it’s being mailed out right now. Obviously with that volume it takes a little bit of time to get all the letters dispatched but they are on their way. Thank you.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Thanks Rachel. And while we’ve got you I think this is another question for you.

Q:        Can you apply for funding increase for staff under CHSP too?

Rachel Blackwood:

Thanks Steph. I’m assuming that question might have predated my presentation. So the answer is yes that CHSP providers can apply for funding through the upcoming grant opportunity that we are aiming to make available before Christmas with decisions to be made early in the new year. Thank you.

Stephanie Kaiser:

And this was in your presentation as well but:

Q:        When will the CHSP grant open?

Rachel Blackwood:

Yep. So we’re aiming for before the end of the calendar year as I just said. Thanks Steph.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Great. Okay.

Sorry. Just taking a look to see what other questions we have.

Mitch I think this one’s for you.

Q:        Could you please clarify what exactly is the meaning of effective first full pay period?

Mitch Docking:

Yeah. Sure Steph. And Chris might want to add to this as well. But the Fair Work Commission decision in the Aged Care Work Value Case, they are increasing award wages for the eligible workers that we’ve worked through today. They’ve set a date for the 1st of January 2025 but the technicality of that is that it doesn’t apply until the first full pay period from that date that applies to the different workers. Chris is that sort of a good summary of that or would you like to add?

Sorry Chris. We can’t hear you.

Christopher Crisafi:

Sorry. There we go. Just found the mute button. Yeah Mitch. You’ve explained that correctly. All I would add, for people who are familiar with Fair Work Commission decisions and the yearly wage increase this is generally how they apply. So they only take effect from the first full pay period after the effective date. So that means if you have a pay period that spans that effective date you don’t apply the increase until the first full pay period following the effective date.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Thanks. So we have a comment here saying that it would be useful to have the Q&As captured and published too. So yes it’s our intention to have a list on the website of all the questions and the answers that we answer today as well as answers to some of the questions that we received before today’s webinar. And this webinar will also be recorded and put on our website.

Okay. I think Mitch this might be another question for you. 

Q:        What if we’re already paying above award rates? Do we increase by a percentage or meet the market?

Mitch Docking:

Thanks Steph. This is another one for me. And this really goes back to the guidance. So I guess going back to the funding mechanisms for residential aged care and home care packages the way that we fund them through supplements and subsidies, we’re not able to really just zero in on and fund the gap to the new award rates. So effectively they’re increased on averages. So that’s why we have now published a guidance document to support providers and set the expectation that wages funding for those providers of residential aged care and Home Care Packages increase their worker wages in line with the pay tables that are enclosed in that guidance. So if you are already paying above the award we do expect that providers do increase their worker wages by the dollar amount that the award actually does increase by. That is the expectation set by the guidance.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Thanks Mitch. We have a question here on on costs so I might let both Rachel and Mark talk about this one.

Q:        Can you tell us a little bit more detail about the on costs?

This question has an example here about:

Q:        What about on costs in terms of superannuation, payroll tax and WorkCover premium?

Mark I’ll go to you first.

Mark Richardson:

Sure. Okay. Thanks Steph. Look that’s a good question. I think I saw something pop up before as well in relation to that. So look in short what happens – and not to go into too much detail – IHACPA takes the Aged Care Financial Report, they take the labour costs that include on costs. So that’s wages and on costs. On costs include things like leave liabilities. When I say leave liabilities I mean annual leave, sick leave, long service leave. It even goes into – without I guess recalling all the detail in the ACFR and QFR, it even goes down into the detail of uniform costs, training costs and all those sorts of things. So wages and on costs are then indexed and a part of the AN-ACC price so that you have funding to I guess pay those things. 

In terms of superannuation, superannuation is indexed I guess after wages are increased in accordance with Fair Work Commission decisions and they’re indexed in alignment with the superannuation guarantee. So they’re also indexed. Insurance premiums. I don’t specifically recall what’s in the ACFR but I’m sure we can take that offline and answer in our Q&As. In terms of payroll tax Governments have not funded payroll tax for some time now. Given that payroll tax is a state-based tax the Federal Government or governments for some period now have had a policy in place that does not include funding for payroll tax. 

Stephanie Kaiser:

Thanks Mark. Rachel anything you’d like to add from a home care or CHSP perspective in relation to on costs?

Rachel Blackwood:

Thanks Steph. So firstly with respect to the Home Care Package subsidy increase I can confirm that that is inclusive of on costs. The subsidy increases have been calculated by analysing what providers spent on aged care workers including on costs in the 2022-23 financial year. With respect to the CHSP grant opportunity again I can confirm that providers will be able to seek funding to assist them with the costs of both wages and associated on costs and further guidance on that will be provided in the Grant Opportunity Guidelines when they’re released before the end of the year. Thank you.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Thanks.

We’ve got a few questions here Chris which I think might be for you about part time employees and progression. I don’t know if that’s too detailed or if that’s something that you can talk about today. So one example is:

Q:        When measuring time in industry for classification progression what is taken to be one year? Is it full time equivalent or just a calendar 12 months irrespective of hours worked?

Christopher Crisafi:

Thanks Stephanie. That is a really good question and that is something you’ll be able to find on the website or by contacting our Infoline. That’s an issue that will come up in various awards so there is a way of approaching that. But it might be best to speak to someone on the Infoline about that one, about that specific question, in case there are any circumstances related to an employee’s particular personal circumstances that need to be factored in.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Thanks. Mitch I don’t know if you want to have a go at this question. You might have to hand to someone else.

Q:        If an entity is on an Enterprise Bargaining Agreement and not one of these three awards does this mean that the new rates apply to this organisation?

Mitch Docking:

Yeah. Interesting question. I mean really I think it goes back to the Aged Care Work Value Case and the awards in scope for the Aged Care Work Value Case. So they are the Aged Care Award, both direct and indirect care workers now, Schedule E of the SCHADS Award which will be moving to Schedule F from 1 January, and then the Nurses Award 2020. So registered nurses and enrolled nurses received an increase in the middle of last year and assistants in nursing will be receiving this next round of increase from 1 January when they move into the Aged Care Award and Residential Aged Care Award. So I think that that’s really the key point, that the award wages are for those workers employed under those awards, and if the EBA is underpinned by those awards those increases should apply. I think there’s probably some workers that are in scope in terms of the award but may fall under different employment arrangements. So I’m sort of a little bit top of head but say some gardening or landscaping may fall under the Aged Care Award or they may be sort of covered under a different industrial instrument that may actually be out of scope. So there’s a little bit of technicality there, whether the actual EBA is underpinned by the in scope awards or whether there are different employment arrangements in place that aren’t underpinned by the awards increase in the Aged Care Work Value Case.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Thanks Mitch. Mitch another question for you on leave liabilities. So this provider has residential home care and CHSP.

Q:        Can you clarify if the 50% is for home care and CHSP?

Mitch Docking:

Yeah. That’s correct Steph. So similar to the Stage 2 leave liabilities grant that opened last year and providers would have been funded earlier this year 50% of the increased costs in the leave liabilities providers were able to claim. So that was for all eligible providers at that time. So there has been the change just for residential aged care to a reduced proportion of 25% but 50% still applies to the other providers in the other programs. So if a provider is delivering services for in scope workers across residential aged care, Home Care Packages and CHSP they will be able to apply for 25% of the increased cost in leave liabilities for residential aged care and 50% for the other programs.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Thanks Mitch. We’ve got two questions here that are quite similar.

Q:        Do these requirements apply to state Government operated facilities as well as local Government facilities? Do they need to pass on additional funding in the same way?

Mitch?

Mitch Docking:

I’m getting picked on a little bit here Steph. I think it’s probably another one for me but happy for maybe Mark to jump in. Yeah. So I think it sort of goes back to our arrangements in terms of funding the increase. So certainly in residential aged care the subsidies through the AN-ACC price do fund some state-based providers through the AN-ACC funding. So with that funding flowing through to those state-based or local Government providers the guidance does apply to those providers. So we would expect even if they are under a state-based industrial arrangement that that funding is being received and is passed onto the relevant workers.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Thanks Mitch.

Mitch Docking:

I don’t know if you wanted to add to that Mark or Rachel.

Mark Richardson:

No. I think you summarised it well Mitch. I mean Government facilities, state-based Government facilities if they’re an approved provider are funded under AN-ACC the same as any other provider type. And all providers as far as I’m aware are expected to meet the guidance material published.

Mitch Docking:

Steph I think it’s probably worth noting quickly for Stage 2 – I think this is a bit of a question for Stage 2 as well, the 15% increase from the middle of last year. There were just some ancillary documents I guess to our guidance material that didn’t fully cover off on the state-based issue. So they were sort of covered off in a separate fact sheet and some further arrangements and a Q&A document that we sort of pointed back to. We have sort of pulled that issue into our guidance material that’s now available. So the expectation for those providers receiving that funding does now sit inside the published guidance document.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Thanks Mitch. Rachel.

Q:        Will home care providers still need to seek consent from each client to increase prices under Support at Home?

Rachel Blackwood:

Thanks Stephanie. I think that’s probably a question for some of my colleagues who aren’t in the webinar today. But I can confirm that as we prepare for the commencement of the Support at Home arrangements we will be providing further information to providers about how to best implement things post 1 July next year assuming the legislation passes the Parliament. Thank you.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Thanks Rachel.

So we’ve got a question here and Mitch I think this is probably covered in the guidance document.

Q:        Can you outline accountability arrangements and provider responsibilities in a document? Can we find this on the website?

Mitch Docking:

Yeah. Thanks Steph. We do have a section in the guidance that sets out our accountability arrangements around this finding. So I did already sort of cover them off in the presentation so you can refer to that. But we’ve got a few things in place. We’ve got the guidance document that I’ve been talking about a bit today. We’ve got the attestation question of the QFR. And we’ve got the hourly wage rates as well that’s reported through the QFR. And of course that is all underpinned by the minimum award rates. That’s the legal mechanism that really underpins all of this that providers must at least fund that. So I guess reflecting on that there are a few sort of places that you can sort of refer to what we mean by accountability. Probably the key one being the guidance document. But we might look to sort of pull that into the follow up Q&A document for this webinar so it is all in one place.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Thanks Mitch. Chris a question for you.

Q:        If you have a mix of home care clients for aged care and disability care would the classification for employees always then need to be under the Aged Care Award given that this has higher rates?

Christopher Crisafi:

Yeah. That is a really good question. It is a complex question. So generally speaking you apply the award based on the nature of the business. So I suppose that would be a question of award coverage. That is something that I would suggest if you haven’t already spoken to the Fair Work Infoline speaking to them about it to determine which award covers you and what the classification of your employees should be. Because they are questions for which we need to do consideration of the nature of the business and the classification of the employees and that can be quite a detailed consideration. So I think that’s something perfect for a call to the Fair Work Infoline which is again 13 13 94 if you need that number.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Thank you. We’ve got a couple of questions asking for a link to the guidance document so we’ll make sure that goes into the chat.

So a question here. I think Mitch this one’s for you as well.

Q:        Does this mean we have to retroactively update carers’ pay by January 2025?

Mitch Docking:

I thought that might have been one for you Chris. Had you prepared something in answer to that?

Christopher Crisafi:

Yes. Yes. I have Mitch. Thanks for that one. So the increase takes effect as we might have mentioned earlier from the first full pay period on or after 1 January 2025. So it is a prospective pay increase from that date. It’s not a retrospective pay increase. So effective workers’ current award rates and classifications apply until determination start on 1 January. The changes don’t start for an employer until the start of that first full pay period on or after 1 July 2025. Again I might give our website another plug on that point. If you go to fairwork.gov.au and go to the search bar and include aged care and hit ‘Search’ you’ll find a link to our Aged Care Work Value Case page on the changes to the awards. This information will be set out there. And again 13 13 94 is the Fair Work Infoline number if you still have any questions after looking at the web material.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Thanks Chris.

Chris this is another one for you.

Q:        Will the wage rise cover community care workers?

Christopher Crisafi:

Yeah. Absolutely. So going back to just the principle of it it applies based on the classifications in the award. So community care worker as we understand at the Fair Work Ombudsman is a job title that could apply to a variety of different duties and environments. So whether or not a particular community care worker is entitled to a rate increase depends on which award and classification applies to their work which depends on their duties and the industry of the employer.

So putting aside the job title the award wage increases will apply to employees – going to our earlier point, home care employees under the SCHADS Award, direct care and general employees under the Aged Care Award and assistants in nursing in the aged care sector currently under the Nurses Award. So again going back to the award and looking at the classifications term and considering the employees’ duties and the environment they work in and trying to find them in that classification schedule, irrespective of what their job title might be in their contract or through the practices of the workplace.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Thanks Chris. We’ve just had another question here about whether we’ll share the answers today in a Q&A document and I just want to confirm that yes we will be putting that onto our website along with a recording of today’s webinar.

Okay. I think we have covered most of the questions. There are a few questions there that we’ve already covered through others.

We are getting close to finish through all the questions so I might give people another minute. If you’ve got any more questions please get them through now. So we have a question here.

I think this one might be for you Chris as well.

Q:        Do we still have to pass the wage increases on if our workers are under a common law contract and the award rate is higher?

Christopher Crisafi:

Thanks Steph. So a situation where an employee is on a common law contract and the award rate is higher. So if the employee is covered by the award then you are unable to contract out of those rates generally. That’s the rate you have to apply. So I suppose the question I would have or the way I’d look at it is if one of those awards that are affected applies to the employee and the employee is in one of the classifications that’s affected then they will get the increase.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Okay. We’ve got another question here Chris. It might be another one for the Infoline.

Q:        If the carer role has over four years’ experience only starting to be counted from the 1st of January 2025 so not for those who already have four years’ experience?

Christopher Crisafi:

So as I understand it the question is whether the changes mean that you kind of restart the clock on someone’s time served. Generally speaking that wouldn’t be the case under kind of general principles that we would apply but it’s worthwhile I think Steph as you’ve flagged just giving the Fair Work Infoline a call. Employees in those circumstances, it might be best just to run that by Infoline to make sure that those four years are definitely counted. And that will be the best approach there.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Great. Thanks. Mitch you’ve covered this a little bit in your presentation and one of the previous responses but:

Q:        What reporting or formal compliance mechanisms will be in place to monitor that the correct wage rates and increases are passed on by the provider?

Mitch Docking:

Yeah. So I think I’ve really covered off on that. So again the legal mechanism there is the increase in the awards. We’ve got the overlaying guidance document and there’s the expectation that wages increase at least consistent in the dollar amounts that are set out in the pay tables. Then when providers of residential aged care and Home Care Packages submit their Quarterly Financial Reports there is an attestation question. So that attestation from Quarter 3 2024-25 will be – I guess the definition around that will sort of be about whether the funding is being passed on for the Stage 3 increases to the eligible workers. So that’s just as yes/no question when submitting the QFR. And those responses are published in a report on a quarterly basis. So we do track it through that. We do have some of the workers eligible for the Stage 3 increases that we do collect the hourly wage rate data for so we will be continuing to monitor the increase for those workers through the hourly wage rates data. And then of course there’s more data around labour costs and hours. So we’ll be looking at the whole mix of those to ensure that we’re monitoring and the pass through is happening. We also have a good relationship with ACCPA and the unions so if there’s any issues there they may also come to us and we’ll do some follow up. So some sort of tips from the sector as well.

Stephanie Kaiser:

Thanks Mitch. Okay. So we have answered most of the questions today. Just a reminder that all of the questions, the Q&A document as well as a recording of today’s session will be available on our website.

And I just want to remind everyone that before you go that once the webinar finishes there will be a short survey that will pop up on your screen. It takes around one minute to answer the three questions and we’d really appreciate it if you could take a moment to complete it. It helps us to improve our webinars. And thank you from us and thank you to all of the presenters. Bye bye.

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