What will this mean for jobs and skills development in local water utilities in rural and regional NSW?
A. The NSW Government has made it clear that jobs must be protected under any proposal to alter the structure of water supply and sewerage service delivery. The Independent Inquiry Report recommends a range of options to manage and mitigate future skills shortages currently facing local water utilities, including: • incentives to communities of small local water utilities to undertake training in areas identified as skills needs (e.g. engineering and planning) • pooling of human resource needs amongst local water utilities • increasing the size of local water utilities • providing skill development opportunities for local water utilities staff • outsourcing skills needs to the private sector • increasing the capacity of training and development organisations. The Terms of Reference for the Inquiry require that socio-economic impacts on the community are taken into account in developing recommendations.
