Agenda item

The report contains proposals to amend the trade union facilities , duties, activities and time off arrangements across the Council with a view to reducing expenditure on current time off provision.

The Head of Human Resources introduced the report which sought the Committee’s agreement for amendments to trade union facilities, duties activities and time off arrangements across the Council with a view to reducing expenditure on current time off provision.  The Head of Human Resources referred to paragraph 6, which reported that a number of meetings had taken place between himself and the Head of Schools Personnel, Deputy Director of Business Support &Development, Children and Young People’s service and representatives on the trades unions. The Head of Human Resources had allocated reasonable time off for branch officer roles to all trades unions by taking into account the following criteria:

• Union Membership numbers
• The volume and complexities of  Corporate and Local Industrial Relations issues taking place in the organisation
• A minimum of 0.1 facility time would be granted to each recognised trade union. In addition for unions with 0.1 or 0.2 facility time reasonable time off will be also granted in recognition of casework preparation and representation at meetings.

The Committee learned that the total current time off allocated to all the trades unions was 12.1 Full Time Equivalent posts which were proposed to be reduced to 7.5 Full Time Equivalent posts, a reduction of 4.6 full time equivalents. It was clarified to the Committee that, the figure of 0.1 (the number of days off allowed to deal with Union duties) was equitable to half a day off per week.

The Chair asked the deputation from the NUT to address the meeting and raise their views in regards to the report and its proposals.

Tony Brockman, representing the NUT, voiced opposition to the proposals contained in the report as they would mean a reduction in Council funding to teaching unions. Tony Brockman proposals were not seen as equitable in comparison to the reductions proposed to the other non teaching unions and the deputation asked the proposals to be repelled .Tony Brockman expressed concern that there had not been prior discussion of the proposed reductions through the form of a negotiating body or through the CEJCC. He disputed the membership numbers listed in the report and pointed to the lack of provision given to time off facilities for branch officers undertaking national union duties. Allocation of Health & Safety duties were also matters for resolution between the Council and the teaching unions as there was currently no provision in schools rules to accommodate these functions. Therefore there was a need to resolve the allocation of school safety issues and the learning representative duties which were now to be allocated to schools but which were previously carried out by the Council.

Tony Brockman further challenged the membership figures set out in the report and claimed that they were not accurate. The teaching unions had a higher number of members than listed in the report and advised the figure to be 2067. He further questioned the benchmarking exercise undertaken with other boroughs on their membership numbers and used as a basis to form recommendations. Anecdotal research had found that other boroughs were increasing their facilities for teaching unions instead of decreasing them.

Julie Davies continued with the deputation and highlighted the number of duties, representative roles, meetings attended as well as national duties carried out by the teaching union representatives. This would often entail working above and beyond Council funded union time off arrangements. She pointed to their  key roles in relation to resolving grievances at an early stage and limiting the number of grievances. Further she referred to the allocation of time off for health and safety work and  the union learning representative roles  which she contended were better provided to schools by one person with full time off arrangements.

The deputation in summary requested that the recommendations contained in the report should not be agreed as the formula used to calculate the allocation of union branch officer full time equivalents was not accurate. They believed the process had not been transparent or fair to all of the unions concerned.

Chris Taylor from Unison was the spokesperson for their deputation. He began by concurring that the NUT had been treated in a dissimilar manner to the other non teaching union trade unions.  He requested that the implementation of the reduction in time off for Unison take effect from March 2012 instead of January 2012 to coincide with the annual trade union elections and enable the changes to be implemented following the annual   meeting. Chris Taylor referred to the report which advised that the provisions for union time off facilities would be reviewed annually by the Head of Human Resources and he requested, on behalf of the Unison, that issues regarding provision are raised through the Employment Joint Consultative Committee (CEJCC).  There was further reference to paragraph 4.4, Appendix A, which provided information on how time off arrangements would be applied for trade unions duties in relation to staffing restructures, attending meetings with members related to staff changes, attending steward meetings and representing members at formal meetings. The paragraph further advised that 2 hours would be allocated per week to these duties which the Employee side asked this is reconsidered because it was not a sufficient time to carry out these duties. They asked for some flexibility with time allocations and gave an example of   situations when employees may prefer to be represented at certain meetings with a steward who they are familiar with as opposed to a branch officer. 

The Chair asked the Head of Human Resources to respond to the points raised by the deputations from the NUT and the Employee side.   The Head of Human Resources explained that the proposals regarding the change to trade union time off provisions was not a matter that required negotiation through formal bodies and that the decision was for the General Purposes Committee to make. The Council had a legal duty to provide reasonable time off facilities for trade unions which they were adhering to. There had also been consultation on the proposals prior to this Committee meeting as outlined in the introduction to the report. The Head of HR responded to the argument made that the membership levels were not a strong basis to base the recommendations of the report upon, and he advised that the criteria considered was not only membership numbers but the volume and range of issues dealt with at the local level by the unions together with the complexities of their casework. The criteria considered when revising the provision were set out in paragraph 6 of the main report. In relation to the concerns expressed about Health and Safety representation at school meetings, it was the obligation of employers to provide reasonable time off arrangements for attendance at these meetings. This did not rule out the NUT addressing the Schools Forum on their concerns about this and provisions for learning representative roles.  The membership numbers for the teaching unions were to be confirmed at the time of the review but the Head of HR offered to amend the NASUWT Branch officer time off from 0.2 to 0.1 until the membership numbers were verified. The Head of Human Resources further advised the deputation from Employee side that the Committee would need to make the decision on whether to amend the implementation date for the reduction in time off facilities from January 2012 to April 2012. In terms of the timing of the review on the provision in 2012, the Head of Human Resources advised that the election arrangements of the trade unions would be taken into account. He further agreed that the EJCC could encompass the referral of concerns on the new proposed time off provisions. The matter of union stewards time off was responded to and the Committee advised that the figure of two hours off per week was provided as a guide and reasonable account would be taken of a steward’s time for preparation of staff meetings and core meetings, and representation of staff at meetings.

The chair invited questions from the Committee members which followed along with input from the deputations.

Some members expressed concern on the application of proportionality and referred to the numbers of staff in the Council being reduced in comparison to the reductions in full time equivalent union representatives which was not in equal proportion. There were further questions from the NUT deputation on the comparative data and clarification sought on which other boroughs were reducing Council funding of teaching union provisions for time off. It was noted that the membership number listed for Unison was before the current staff reductions taking place and were the figures available at the time of writing the report.  The Head of Human Resources  reiterated that  the membership numbers were not the sole criteria used for proposing changes to the union time off arrangements and  explained that the current offers of provisions for teaching trade union time off facilities could not dictate the  Council’s proposals on this. He also pointed to the level of industrial relations and casework issues that would be dealt with by the Employee side through dealing with a broader membership. The deputation from the NUT continued to dispute the membership numbers and further spoke of their undocumented work in dealing with staff matters and grievances at an early stage meaning that there were very few cases which progressed to a hearing stage and therefore no requirement to record or have figures on. They referred to their case loads and offered to provide statistics from diaries on the number of casework and health and safety meetings attended.  The Committee asked about the central funding received from NUT head office and whether increased claims could be made for funding especially to support the workloads of local NUT branch officers. In response it was noted that the NUT already had a significant  staffing framework to support and this included the legal advisors which could  called upon  if a  staff grievance was formalised as these could be difficult and complex cases.

In response to a question on the school teacher membership of unions in relation to the number of schools in the borough it was clarified that the school academies and non maintained schools membership of the  teaching union were not included in the membership numbers as they were not funded by the local authority. It was also important to note that teachers could be a member of more than one teaching union. This would be better known once the smaller teaching unions had verified their membership numbers.

In answer to concerns about adequate time off for National Executive Union duties, assurance was given that there would be adequate time off provision provided, should a member of the unions have this national role. This was also something which was legally required.

The Committee noted that an equalities impact assessment was not required on this report as the required EQIA screening tool had been applied and had determined this.

The Committee agreed to the request of the Employee side to amend the implementation date for the reduction in time off for NUT and Unison. This would take effect from 01 April 2012 as opposed to the 01 January 2012 to allow for   the annual trade union elections and enable the changes to be implemented following their Annual   meetings.

RESOLVED

1. That  the recommended changes to the trade union time off provision as described in paragraphs 7 be agreed . (In summary this meant a reduction of 4.6 full time equivalent (FTE) in Branch Officer and Employee side time off and  a reduction in  the scope of the paid time off for attendance at accredited conferences)

2. That the revised policy for Trade Union Facilities and Time off Arrangements at appendix A be agreed. That it be noted that these arrangements had now been harmonised to include teaching unions as well as the non teaching unions.
3. That the change in  the time off agreements start from 1 April 2011 but the implementation of the reduction in time off for NUT and Unison  take effect from 1 April 2012 to allow time for appropriate notice and furtherance of good employee relations during the coming months of further significant organisational change.  Those changes for the other unions and employee side take place from 1 July 2011.

4. That  these provisions be reviewed annually by the Head of Human Resources and reported to the new Corporate Committee if changes to the branch officer time off levels are recommended.

5. That the abstentions of Cllr Bloch and Cllr Browne be noted in regard to the above recommendations.