School crossing supervisors leave the job over pay, safety issues

Hoban Recruitment has the contract to supply 28 supervisors across 25 school crossing sites in the ACT and has earned about $2.5 million for delivering the service since 2018.

Crossing supervisors say they are leaving the job because the $22 per hour pay doesn't stack up financially when travel time and costs are taken into account.

Brett Jones, who resigned this year, said he repeatedly reported drivers who did not stop at the crossing to Hoban but felt nothing was done to improve the situation.

"Habitual pests do it all the time. It can be dangerous because you have to have your wits about you," he said.

Mr Jones said there was no pay increase since he started and the management of the program had switched to the recruitment firm's Sydney office.

Alison Smith resigned to take up a role as a crossing supervisor in Queanbeyan, where she will be a direct employee of the NSW government. She said shift locations would change frequently at short notice in the ACT and she also experienced risks to her safety.

"Every time I report something, nothing happens," she said.

"A few of us have nearly been hit by drivers and drivers are creeping forward. A few people have quit because they are sick of it."

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Another former crossing supervisor Darryl Parker said he enjoyed interacting with the students and parents but the job wasn't cost or time effective.

The shifts were split into one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon and it took up to 25 minutes to travel to each shift.

"I did get abused quite often," Mr Parker said.

"We could report them but we never got feedback on what was happening ... I'm just thankful I'm alive."

Transport Canberra and City Services did not directly respond when asked how many serious incidents had been reported by Hoban since the current contract began in October 2021.

"Hoban Recruitment has an incident reporting system in place for crossing supervisors to report any incidents at their respective crossing," a spokesperson said.

"This includes an escalation process for Hoban Recruitment to raise incidents directly with the ACT government for further response, which includes a combination of education, enforcement and engineering treatments subject to the incident."

The ACT government spokesperson said the school crossing supervisors were paid based on the award rate.

"The ACT government is committed to the ongoing delivery of the School Crossing Supervisor program and is currently considering options to continue delivering the program beyond the existing contract with Hoban Recruitment."

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