22053 (2025). Francisco Hernandez to the Minister of Corrections

22053 (2025). Francisco Hernandez to the Minister of Corrections: What government resources, if any, have been spent in the Minister’s departments, agencies, crown entities and any other bodies that the Minister is responsible for, if any, on a pay equity claim that will be halted, if any?

Hon Mark Mitchell: I am advised that Corrections had been working on two pay equity claims. The first claim is for Probation Officers and Senior Practitioners. This claim was raised by the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) in 2020, and in 2021, the Public Service Association (PSA) raised a claim for the same workforce. These two union-raised claims were consolidated into one claim, as is required by legislation. I am further advised that the second pay equity claim was raised by PSA in 2021 for Corrections’ Psychologists. I am further advised that the pay equity work was led by Corrections’ Pay and Employment Equity Team with input from staff under coverage of the claims, and from the finance and legal teams as required. I am further advised that total external resourcing costs for the two pay equity claims at Corrections has totalled approximately $175,000 since 2020. This included Corrections engaging external providers for independent advice and as part of the claims process, Corrections, PSA and NUPE engaging independent pay equity specialists to provide training on the use of the work assessment tool and run a quality assurance (QA) process on the work assessment phase of the claims covering: o Joint training for parties involved in the pay equity interviewing process. o QA of claimant interview transcripts to ensure the data required for assessment is captured. o Joint analysis of the evidence captured to assess the skills, responsibilities, conditions of the work, and degree of effort required to perform the work, as required by legislation. o Facilitation to ensure the assessment outcomes were reached by mutual consensus.