Victorian schools secretly hire extra staff as concerns raised about new cleaners

VICTORIAN schools are secretly hiring extra staff to remove rubbish as dozens raise concerns over new cleaners hired by the Andrews Government after a crackdown on dodgy contractors.

SCHOOLS are secretly hiring “facilities” staff to “pick up the slack” of the government’s new school cleaners.

About 30 state schools have raised concerns over their new cleaners after the Andrews Government cracked down on dodgy contractors.

The Herald Sun has been told some schools have hired extra staff under a “facilities” proviso to remove rubbish and open and close campuses — jobs that cleaners under previous contracts had been doing.

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Schools are no longer permitted to hire their own cleaning staff, with contracts now controlled by the Department of Education and delegated to eight companies after the government cut more than 100 contracts in a bid to stamp out rife underpayment.

Parents Victoria’s Gail McHardy said she heard “the frustration as equally as I hear good news from school people”.

But she said the issue had “caused some angst” for some schools.

“Parents Victoria has an expectation that our state schools are cleaned to an absolutely high quality standard — if that isn’t happening because of the changes we encourage our school leaders to feed that back to the system,” she said.

Parents Victoria’s Gail McHardy says the cleaning staff issue has “caused some angst” for some schools.

Australian Principals Federation president Julie Podbury said of her membership base, “I’ve got one school that is happy”.

She said one principal felt forced to cut programs to make savings for cleaning services — “She was deciding between literacy or numeracy support.”

“It is very messy and it adds enormous stress,” Ms Podbury said.

“There is disquiet everywhere — it is in its teething stages so it should calm down, but they have lost good will.”

A total 667 Melbourne schools are now under the new deal, with fewer than one in 20 raising an issue.

A Department of Education spokesman said the funding going to school cleaning had increased “to make sure that staff are being paid properly”, however the detail of that funding was “commercial-in-confidence”.

“In the new model’s first week, we received around 100 calls from schools,” he said.

“Most of these raised minor concerns which were quickly addressed.

“Around 30 schools still face issues and we’re working with the contractors to address these as quickly as possible.

“Service providers must meet the standards which are set out in their contracts and must allocate adequate resources to do so.

“We are confident that there is adequate funding to pay cleaners properly and for these standards to be met.”

The Andrews Government overhauled its school cleaning contract system after the Herald Sun exposed a number of dodgy contractors who were systematically ripping off their workers.

The newspaper revealed more than 80 per cent of the state’s school cleaners were potentially being underpaid.

United Voice assistant state secretary Ben Redford said it had been a big job to transform from the previous school cleaning system where most cleaners were being ripped off on a daily basis.

“There’s no doubt we’re facing some transitional issues right now, and the cleaners’ union is keen to work with Government to ensure cleaners are treated properly and have enough hours to get their job done safely,” Mr Redford said.

School cleaner Lorraine Bird said the new system meant they now had job security.

She said cleaners could now afford to pay their bills and their mortgage.

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