By Maj Felicity Lofthouse
Members with leave in their books that is more than three years old will lose it after June 30 this year under the automatic leave lapsing provisions of PMKeyS.

Members have less than three months to either take the leave or seek, through their units, a waiver from CA Lt-Gen Peter Leahy.

Last year some units failed to identify members with outstanding leave balances, and as a consequence those members lost days.

The "crunch" will come after numerous warnings that members cannot keep accruing large amounts of leave because it makes it difficult for Army to determine its liability.

There is also the issue of people working long periods without recreation leave, which is designed to allow a proper balance between work, family and leisure.

The Director of Personnel-Army, Col Mike Milford, said this should not be a surprise to anyone because it had been carried out for the past couple of years.

"Like any large organisation, Army needs to be able to plan efficiently and it can't do that if it has large and variable liabilities over which it has little or no control," he said.

Units can see which of their own members are at risk of losing leave by checking the Leave Lapsing report on PMKeyS.

The menu path is:
GO>ADMINISTER LEAVE (AUS)>REPORT>LEAVE LAPSING (ADF)

Maj Denise Mulvaney, Army PMKeyS Cell, said there was the possibility that in some cases corrupt data might cause some leave to be incorrectly earmarked for lapsing, so administering units should double-check accrual records for those members whose leave is to lapse, to make sure their data is correct.

Where, for Service reasons, a member cannot take the leave that is at risk of lapsing, they may apply for a 12-month waiver.

Without waivers, leave at risk will be forfeited.

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