WorkSafe Victoria is to review weekly compensation payments made to young workers to ensure incremental increases have been applied correctly.
The Agency said a routine audit in late 2019 found an error in calculating increment dates had resulted in some incorrect payments being made.
“Investigations into this issue have since taken place and relevant claims from the last 12 months have been reviewed,” WorkSafe said.
“The majority of the potentially impacted payments were made to employers, who are generally responsible for paying their injured workers, and then reimbursed by WorkSafe,” it said.
“The exact number of impacted claims will not be known until each case has been assessed but WorkSafe is reviewing all 20,000 eligible young worker claims dating back to the scheme’s launch on 1 September 1985.”
WorkSafe said assessments were expected to be completed by the end of this financial year.
Chief Executive of WorkSafe, Colin Radford said changes were made as soon as the issue was identified to prevent it from occurring again.
“Young workers are among our most vulnerable and when they are injured at work, it is imperative that they and their employers receive the payments to which they are entitled,” Mr Radford said.
“We will rectify instances where employers or workers received less compensation than they should have,” he said.
Mr Radford urged employers and young workers who thought the issue may apply to them to contact their WorkSafe Agent or email [email protected].
