Ms Kristal Lowe, Chief People and Culture Officer
As you would be aware, salary packaging was implemented in 2001 across all Queensland Government agencies on the basis of a number of Government endorsed salary packaging principles. These principles underpin the current salary packaging arrangements as outlined in the Office of Industrial Relations Circular 02/22.
One key principle is that salary packaging must be managed at no additional cost to Government, which requires employees to meet the cost of any associated Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) incurred.
As a workforce attraction and retention strategy, the Government has approved a variation to the salary packaging principles as part of the 2023-24 Queensland Health budget to improve salary packaging arrangements for employees working in and for business areas eligible for the FBT exemption cap, such as Hospital and Health Services (HHS).
This variation reverses the policy in place since inception of the arrangements in 2001 that non-salary packaged benefits take priority over salary packaged benefits when applying the FBT cap to fringe benefits provided to eligible employees. The variation applies in respect of the 2023-24 FBT year and future years.
Information on how the FBT cap applied to fringe benefits provided to eligible employees up until the 2022-23 FBT year is reflected here, noting that the salary packaging providers will be issuing FBT debts in respect of 2022-23 in the coming months as per normal. The policy variation to allow salary packaged benefits to take first priority in applying the FBT cap in respect of the 2023-24 FBT year and future years is shown here.
The Public Hospital FBT Exemption Cap and Salary Packaging Arrangements Finance Practice Statement available on QHEPS provides further information.
Eligible employees who receive non-salary packaged benefits will now be able to receive greater benefit from the arrangements in 2023-24 and future FBT years.
This policy change will provide HHSs and other FBT cap eligible business areas more ability to incentivise to address workforce issues and will reduce employee FBT debts. In particular, HHSs will have more opportunity in terms of staff attraction and flexibility of movement in the clinical workforce to meet pressure points in the system which to date has been managed by high-cost agency and locum staff. This should provide a financial advantage to HHSs.
It should be noted that no additional funding has been provided, requiring HHSs and FBT cap eligible Departmental business areas to meet the costs associated with this policy change from within existing budget allocations.
Should you require further information, contact the Department of Health via FBT@health.qld.gov.au.
People and Culture Intranet launch
I am excited to share that we have launched an updated People and Culture landing page on the Metro North intranet on QHEPS. We are aware there is a wealth of information available for our staff, which at times may be difficult to navigate, so we have invested in trying to improve the self-service capability for our employees.
This is only the first phase of the project and in the coming months we will continue to make improvements. Whether you are seeking development opportunities, recruitment or job information, wellbeing resources or would like to understand more about flexible work or employee benefits, we trust it will be much easier to navigate the intranet for this information. A shout out to Metro North Communications for partnering with us to create an improved customer service.
Kristal.