Assessment farce at Werris Creek

The ongoing refusal by CountryLink to develop proper documentation and processes that comply with RailCorp’s Competency Assessment policy has lead to an absurd charade on the Werris Creek to Moree route.

The Werris Creek Principal Driver has been the only qualified assessor for this route since 2009. He has been sidelined over several years from his designated training and assessment responsibilities because of his raising of concerns over a number of years that CountryLink’s competency-based assessment process directly contradicts and compromises the validity of workplace CAs carried out on CountryLink drivers.

In an astounding act, CountryLink recently used a one-day sick leave of the Principal Driver to release a Briefing Note saying that he was on “indefinite sick leave” and because of this they had to deploy two non-route compliant assessors to the route to get as many SOSMs qualified as possible and thus bypass the use of the Principal Driver.

What is even more scandalous is the fact that the first SOSM was assessed as being competent over the route by the second non-route qualified SOSM, who was then subsequently was assessed as not being competent for the same route!!

It would be laughable if it were not so serious. As a result of this systemic failure the RTBU has had no other option but to report the matter to ITSRR.

NSW Loco Division Secretary Bob Hayden has written to CountryLink / RailCorp asking for an explanation and raising the Division’s concerns, but so far has not received a reply.