Category: UNISON Campaign

TEN REASONS WHY WE OPPOSE ATTACKS ON YOUR CHOICE BARNET CARE WORKERS

1. Our Your Choice Barnet members should not be asked to pay for an outsourcing failure.

2. Your Choice Barnet is an outsourcing project dreamed up by highly paid consultants paid for by tax payer’s money

3. If One Barnet outsourcing is so successful and is delivering savings to protect frontline services then why are Your Choice Barnet care workers being asked to take a minimum 9.5% cut in their pay?

4. Your Choice Barnet has failed to deliver any new business growth two years after it was first created.

5. Your Choice Barnet last year needed a £1 million bail out of taxpayers’ money from Barnet Homes requiring a 6% interest repayment. Both companies are 100% owned by Barnet Council.

6. Less than nine months after receipt of a £1million loan Your Choice Barnet is looking to cut the staff bill by a further £400,000 by 1 April 2014.

7. Our members should not have their basic pay cut by 9.5% and come out of national pay bargaining just because this One Barnet outsourcing project is failing.

8. Barnet UNISON is opposed to the proposed 9.5% cut to staff salaries from 1st April 2014 and has grave concerns that there is a high probability that YCB will be coming back with further cuts for their staff.

9. Barnet UNISON is carrying out an indicative ballot of our members working for Your Choice Barnet and recommending to our members to reject this cut and seeking authorisation of an official strike ballot.

10. Barnet UNISON believes the proposed cuts will compromise the health, safety and wellbeing of service users.

Update on ‘Barnet Council workers receive payout after landmark legal victory’

In the Barnet Press article entitled ‘Council compensates staff made redundant’ it reports:

“A council spokeswoman said: “In the original employment tribunal, Barnet Council accepted there were shortcomings in the data given to the trade unions in respect of agency staff. We have always expressed regret that this resulted in needless litigation.”

What readers will be unaware of is that Barnet UNISON spent three years requesting this information. Indeed the requisite information had previously been provided to the Trade Unions in order to mitigate redundancies and the knock on cost to the local tax payer in redundancy pay outs.

However the Tribunal learnt that HR in 2009 decided not to provide this information and over the following three years evidence was produced to the Tribunal to show how the Trade Unions had been repeatedly refused this information.

What readers would not know is that the HR service was being led by a consultant.

The article in the Barnet Press goes on to say:

“But the authority successfully appealed against the original compensation award and the two parties eventually settled on a new figure, which the council said is well below the first amount.”

This is strange because the original award was quoted here

“Lastly, it demonstrates how expensive a mistake can be: the amount at stake of the awards concerned was noted by the EAT to be something in the order of £850,000.”

This was based on the tribunal made the following awards against the Council:

1. In relation to the 16 redundancies that took effect on 31 March 2012, the award equated to 60 days’ pay.

2. Regarding the transfer to Barnet Homes on 1 April 2012, the award was equivalent to 40 days’ pay.

3. For the transfer to NSL Ltd on 1 May 2012 the award was equivalent to 50 days’ pay.

Making a total of 150 days pay.

Barnet UNISON can report that the settlement reached on behalf of our members is as follows:

1. In relation to the 16 redundancies that took effect on 31 March 2012, the award equated to 51 days’ pay.

2. Regarding the transfer to Barnet Homes on 1 April 2012, the award was equivalent to 34 days’ pay.

3. For the transfer to NSL Ltd on 1 May 2012 the award was equivalent to 42.5 days’ pay.

Making a total of 127.5 days pay which is a significant amount of council tax payers money which could be as much as high as £650,000

Comment

It was and still is our view that this should never have happened. We had previously negotiated a sensible agreement in relation to the provision of agency worker information but this was stopped. Readers please note in 2013 Barnet Council spent £15,933,619 on Agency staff. This case demonstrates the significant financial and reputational risks when employers fails to meaningful consult with Trade Unions. It is our view the decisions by the Council to cut Trade Union Facility Time over the last four years by 90% is a high risk strategy and leaves the Council open for further claims.

“It is now 2 years since YCB came into being and still there is no evidence-based assurance of the current situation and the direction of travel. The proposals outlined in the document “Growth for Your Choice Barnet” (2014) are largely to be found in the original Business Plan 2012. This begs the question as to what has been done about this situation in those past 2 years. Growth is mentioned but with no baseline projection. Since the most favoured option of cutting staff salaries also mentions a need to grow business, and to maintain or improve staff salaries, we can only conclude there is no evidence this pay cut will be sufficient to protect future business and our members’ terms and conditions. UNISON has grave concerns that there is a high probability that YCB will be coming back with further cuts for their staff.”

To view full report click here

Please reply to Glyn Jenkins g.jenkins@unison.co.uk

The Regulations changing the LGPS will come into force with effect from 1 April 2014 .

1.Below is an important  update (that was on the UNISON website News section), covering where we are on the Transitional Regulations that will set out the protections on benefits earned before April.

2. Last chance reminder that anyone who has currently opted out of the LGPS MUST rejoin immediately if they want to ensure the earnings link protection on any final salary benefits they have earned up to April 2014 ( there may be some protection for those who opt back in within 5 years of opting out). If the cost of the contributions is  the problem then they should be reminded that from April there is an option to pay half their normal contribution rate for half the pension. They should approach their employer pension department and ensure that the forms to rejoin has been returned and received before the end of this month.  If they are not actively contributing to the scheme then any  benefits they earned before they opted out that fall outside the proposed  five year window protection to opt back in, will go up in line with prices (currently Consumer Prices Index) not earnings

3. Anyone thinking of paying Additional Voluntary Contributions to maximise tax free lump sum payment when they retire so they don’t have to exchange so much of their pension for cash at the relatively poor exchange rate of only £12 cash £1 pension  should elect to start  paying the contributions BEFORE April 2014. If members elect to pay AVC’s after  April then when they retire they are likely only to be able to take part of their AVC fund as a cash sum ( currently 25% of the value) and the remainder they will have to buy extra pension at whatever the annuity rates will be in the future from a pension provider like an insurance company. Members ,especially those near retirement , should consider paying AVC’s if they can afford it and approach their employer pensions department for details of the AVC arrangement operated by their employer/LGPS fund. They can as an alternative buy extra pension in the LGPS.

1. LGPS transitional regulations update

The government regulations covering transitional arrangements for the Local Government Pension Scheme are still delayed, because the government has yet to decide whether councillors should continue to be allowed to join the LGPS, following its consultation last year.

UNISON head of pensions Glyn Jenkins, who sits on the group that is checking the draft regulations, commented: “There are no plans to reduce the protections that have been agreed, which are in the current draft.”

As drafted, this would mean the ‘rule of 85’ protection will go over into LGPS 2014 unchanged from what it is now. So any part of a person’s service that is currently covered by the rule of 85 would not be reduced for early payment if she or he decides to retire at 60, unless they have not completed enough service by that time to satisfy the rule.

Those who voluntarily decide to retire between the age of 55 and 60 with full or part protection for the rule of 85, would have an early retirement reduction unless the employer agreed to pay to remove it.

There is still fine tuning to be done about the level of the reduction in such cases.

UNISON believes it has succeeded in arguing that the reduction will only count back from age 60, not 65, but this will be confirmed when the regulations are laid.

Also as drafted, the current definition of final pay and the protections on pay will remain the same for all service up to April 2014. The underpinning protection for those who were within 10 years of their normal retirement age at April 2012 is also in the current draft.

“UNISON is pushing for the transitional regulations as drafted to be laid as soon as possible, to remove uncertainty,” said Mr Jenkins.

“We are concerned that, because of the delay in bringing the transitional regulations into law, some members are considering leaving the scheme or even resigning their jobs – under the false impression that the protections will not be implemented and the equally false impression that leaving the scheme would somehow protect their past service rights in the LGPS.

“In fact, all those who want the final earnings protection on their LGPS service to April 2014, must make sure they are contributing to the LGPS when the regulations change in April.”

The Scottish LGPS and Northern Ireland LGPS are separate.

Colin Meech, National Officer

Capital Stewardship Programme

UNISON Centre

130 Euston Road

NW1 2AY

Direct: 0207 121 5595

Mobile: 0798 512 0003

UNISON Direct: 0845 355 0845

Web site: www.capitalstewards.org

Twitter: UNISON Capital @workercapital