Public servants at Services Australia will keep their workplace conditions under Coalition plans for the largest overhaul of the bureaucracy in decades, the public service commission says.
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Services Australia secretary Renée Leon wrote to the department's 30,000 staff on Wednesday after Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week announced plans to make it an agency in the Social Services Department.
Ms Leon told public servants their enterprise agreement would cease after the department became an agency on February 1 next year.
However the Australian Public Service Commission overseeing the bureaucracy's workforce told Services Australia the federal government would restore conditions for staff, she said.
"This is what usually happens when there are departmental changes of the kind we are undergoing," Ms Leon said.
"This action would preserve the terms and conditions of employment at that time."
Ms Leon vowed the changes coming to Services Australia would not halt her plan to raise employee wages for 2 per cent each year over three years, if it passes a staff vote, rather than begin another round of bargaining.
Mr Morrison revealed last week he would cut the number of departments from 18 to 14 in a radical transformation of the federal bureaucracy. His announcement that Services Australia would become an agency cast it into uncertainty as staff considered accepting wage increases instead of negotiating a new workplace deal.
Ms Leon, who under the changes will depart her role, said staff would still vote on the proposed wage rises.
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If staff back the planned wage rises, she would set them in motion using the same laws as the Australian Taxation Office and multiple other Commonwealth employers awarding pay increases instead of negotiating new workplace deals.
"The public service minister would then be asked to make a determination covering both the existing EA and this determination which would maintain your current terms and conditions of employment and provide 2 per cent pay increases for three years," Ms Leon said.
A public service commission spokeswoman said it was planned that current employment arrangements would continue. The commission was "working closely" with Services Australia to keep the terms and conditions for employees.
Community and Public Sector Union national secretary Melissa Donnelly said its members in Services Australia - formerly the Department of Human Services - had fought hard for the pay, conditions and rights in their workplace deal.
The agreement was due to expire in November next year before Mr Morrison's announcement.
Services Australia staff will vote on the department's proposed wage rises from Monday until Friday next week.