Legislative Council, Thursday 26 May 2022

Ms FORREST question to LEADER of the GOVERNMENT in the LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL, Mrs HISCUTT

I understand the West Coast Council have agreed to provide units to the Department of Health for staff accommodation to achieve a suitable standard for occupation, the Department will be required to fund upgrades to the units.

1 What process was used to obtain quotations for the upgrades?

2 How many quotations were obtained?

3 What were the costs obtained?

4 Will the work be undertaken to assist in attracting health care professionals to the West Coast in an extremely tight housing market and
  a) If so, when will the work commence?

Answers:

The Health Workforce 2040 Report, released in September 2021, acknowledges that rental shortages in Tasmania, particularly in rural areas, impact on health service recruitment and retention.

A review of current staff accommodation policy and assets has commenced to understand the gaps and develop a framework to contribute to the removal of recruitment barriers.

West Coast Council has offered the Department of Health a dwelling for staff accommodation. Council advised that it was not able to fund the works required to upgrade the dwelling to an appropriate standard for leasing commercially and therefore was seeking to dispose of the property.

The Department commissioned a building condition assessment, which indicated the property was in very poor condition and required significant works to be undertaken to be brought to a reasonable, but not contemporary, standard for use as staff accommodation.

The cost to upgrade the property, based on the condition assessment, was estimated at $400 000, which does not represent value for money.

There is a complicating issue, as the dwelling is built across both Crown Land, currently licensed to Council, and Council owned park, requiring further costs to undertake a title adjustment.
Council has previously been advised that the Department would be interested in building new staff residences on the Crown Land, should Council demolish the existing building and surrender the current license.