Recommendations
Accept the findings of the public consultation and do not go ahead with this proposal.
Revise the proposal which will see the Heads of the Centres untouched in their terms and conditions whilst their deputies have almost a 50% cut in pay. It is not the case that the Heads of the Centres will be providing 100% cover at the centres as their 36hr contracts do not match all of the opening times.
To view full report click here
UNISON raised the issue with management about the inequality of London Weighting (LW) pay between the Teaching Staff and the Business Support staff and has asked for a justification for the disparity in pay. UNISON stated that in the interest of fairness and to ensure that no discriminatory practices are occurring surely LW must be calculated on a fair and transparent basis and applied consistently to all Barnet & Southgate College staff.
ELG has endorsed a positive recommendation to the Finance and HR sub-committee of the Corporation who agreed on 12 July to align the current London Weighting Allowance for service area staff to the same level as Academic staff which will result in an increase for all service area staff with effect from 1 August 2012. HR will be sending out a letter to all service area staff confirming this change.
UNISON will endeavour to consult and negotiate to harmonise the terms and conditions of service area staff during the consultation for the restructure of service area staff in the Autumn term.
In the interim, UNISON and Organisational Development/HR have run individual meetings with Heads of Curriculum; focus groups with curriculum managers and teaching staff; focus groups with central admin team and the compliance team with the objective to:
· Review current curriculum admin support,establish the strengths and weakness of the current admin support in place at all campuses.
· Establish what of admin service/provision is required to support the curriculum area.
· Obtain suggestions for a proposed model of delivery for curriculum admin support which will meet the organisational needs within a cost-effective framework.
After analysing the results of these focus groups a comprehensive report based on the findings from the audit will be submitted to ELG for consideration in advance of the ELG proposed structure changes for Business Support which will be taking place in the Autumn term.
I would urge each and every member to act as a recruiter. If every member recruits an additional member our total membership will exceed by a significant margin, please contact me for further information.
I would also like to take this opportunity to wish you all a good summer break and look forward to meeting with you all in the new academic year.
Christalla Tsattala
UNISON Barnet & Southgate Senior Steward
The outsourcing saga of Barnet Council Legal Services to Harrow Council continues. The likely date of transfer to Harrow could be early August. The target date was 2 July, but that was before the #Spartacus revolt and plans of the new Harrow Legal Service revealed.
Yesterday staff were informed the new name of the service will reflect the shared service ethos,……?.
There were two issues that are causing concern.
The first is how are the Barnet Council going to overcome the tricky issue of Capita?
Capita currently provide IT services for Harrow Council. Barnet Legal services are currently advising all of the One Barnet projects and using Barnets IT service. They will still have to support the One Barnet projects after they transfer to Harrow, BUT then they will be using IT services provided by Capita.
Capita Group and Capita Symonds are bidding for both outsourcing contracts worth up to £billion pounds.
The staff were told a solution is being worked on…….
The second issue concerns contract monitoring.
UNISON has been concerned about the lack of transparency and requested a copy of the Due diligence which has taken place to support the business case.
UNISON was informed there is no actual Due diligence document. UNISON asked if there was a Due diligence template and was told No.
UNISON asked how the Council was going to ensure the new shared service was going to deliver Value for Money for Barnet residents.
At first UNISON was reminded of the joint strategic board which includes both chief executives). UNISON was already aware of this and asked who would actually monitoring of the contract. Furthermore UNISON asked if the council would monitor outcome or outputs (sorry readers if you now fall asleep).
UNISON was informed that the Council was going to monitor outcomes &outputs and a contract manager would be appointed.
UNISON asked if this was one of the posts in the recent chief executive restructure and was told it was a separate post.
At the Legal services briefing yesterday UNISON asked when this post was being advertised. Staff were informed that they were still working on the details, but they could confirm it was a level four post which makes it a Head of Service post.
UNISON found this strange as the Chief Executives restructure involves all posts level four to level six. The Council has already started assessing staff for the new posts in the Chief Executives restructure and understands some staff have been successful and others not. The Legal Services Contract Monitoring post has not been made available for staff to apply……..more later…
Film lovers maybe familiar with the Film The Cincinnati Kid….in Barnet we have our local version which has been dubbed the £billion pound gamble and it has brought in some heavy hitters such as
Lancy ‘Capita’ Howard
Cincinnati ‘BT’ Kid
EC ‘ Shooter’ Harris
Our esteemed cartoonist Tim Sanders has produced this
UNISON commissioned a brief which has been passed to all 63 councillors
Local Authorities are obliged by law to “make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the way in which its functions are exercised, having regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness”. This is the duty of best value established by the Local Government Act 1999. Whilst it has been amended over the years it is still a fundamental requirement of local government decision making. When applied to procurement decisions it can and should be, interpreted as a duty to ensure that preferred delivery arrangements are demonstrably the ones which represent the best use of resources.
To view full briefing click here
The Barnet Council Not For Sale Conference was a tremendous success. More new faces were welcomed to an every growing group of residents who are concerned about the One Barnet Programme.
In Part One of the Conference there were three speakers. You can view their Powerpoint presentations below
Professor Dexter Whitfield ESSU click here
Andy Mudd APSE click here
John Dix local resident click here
Assembly points:
10:30am outside Friern Barnet Librar y,
Friern Barnet Road, London N11 3DR
11:30am outside North Finchley Library,
Ravensdale Ave . N12 9HP.
12pm Tally Ho Corner
1pm Party in Victoria Park
For full details click here
UNISON Members will know that Legal Service should have been transferred to Harrow Council on Monday 2 July. However there has been a number of serious developments which has resulted in a delay to the transfer. The cause of the delay has been documented before.
On Thursday 5 July 2012 I attended a special Joint Negotiation Consultation Committee to address the following concerns raised by UNISON in the tripartite meetings
UNISON Submission to JNCC 5 July 2012
UNISON wishes to put on the record their dissatisfaction with the TUPE consultation with regards the transfer of legal Services to the London borough of Harrow. Considering at the outset of this TUPE consultation UNISON had strongly urged lessons be learnt from a recent TUPE transfer with the Parking Service. It is disappointing to report that lessons have not been learnt.
Due Diligence
It has been clear from the little information which has been shared with the trade unions that Barnet staff are at risk of redundancy as a result of the TUPE transfer. Both UNISON branches have made repeated requested for a copy of the Financial Due diligence which has taken place.
UNISON recognises the risk that Legal Services may not be able to deliver a viable business case due to lack of financial information. UNISON notes this risk is reported in the business case submitted to Cabinet Resources Committee on 4 April 2012. In the same report the Council quite rightly had to provide evidence that they had mitigated this risk and does so in section 4.2
“Due diligence has been carried out to understand the costs of the future service, alongside considerations of overheads, set up costs, and pension cost”
UNISON is asking this JNCC to provide a copy of the Due diligence.
Inter Authority Agreement
UNISON has been informed that the above agreement will be shared with the staff and trade unions before it is signed. UNISON is concerned that this document may contain information which will have a material impact on our members terms & conditions. UNISON is seeking confirmation that UNISON and our members will be given sufficient time to read and consult on the information contained therein.
UNISON is asking for period of time to be provided to the Trade Unions in order for meaningful consultation of the Inter Authority Agreement to take place.
Outcome
The Council responded by saying that there was no Due diligence report and that the IAA will be circulated to staff and the Trade Unions, but no date.
What next?
The latest delays are now due to ongoing discussions over the content of the Inter Authority Agreement (IAA) which is a legal document between the London Borough of Harrow and London Borough of Barnet. UNISON and staff have been given an assurance that they will see this agreement before it is signed. It is fair to report that staff have mixed feelings about the transfer. Some members just want to get out of Barnet and after what has happened I can fully understand that sentiment. Others are concerned about what happens after transfer as it has already been stated that there are going to be redundancies. Unfortunately both councils are blaming each other about whether sufficient information was transferred to Harrow in order for Harrow to provide meaningful consultation about redundancy proposals with the trade unions.
It is both surprising and disappointing to have to report that for some reason Harrow Council are having a problem agreeing to the re-location protocol imposed by Barnet Council on any future TUPE transfers.
This is the fourth TUPE transfer and the process is getting worse not better, hardly inspiring news for our members in the much bigger outsourcing projects.
Barnet UNISON in partnership with Barnet Alliance for Public Services and supported by the TUC are hosting a conference on the mass privatisation of Barnet council services this Saturday 7 July 12- 3 pm at the Greek Cypriot Centre, Britannia Road, North Finchley, London N12 9RU
The Council is attempting to become a Commissioning Council whereby it no longer delivers council services. In the last few months Barnet Council has already transferred the following staff and services out of the council to new employers
· Social Care services for adults with disabilities
· Housing Needs & Resources
· Parking services
· All of the Legal Department * (talks on the transfer of staff to Harrow Council are still ongoing)
By the end of May 2013 up to 70% of the council workforce will no longer be working for the Council.
The aim of the conference is to provide information about the scale of risk to the council tax payers of Barnet. The conference will be in two parts.
Part One speakers include
Professor Dexter Whitfield European Services Strategy Unit (ESSU) recently published a report on the cost and consequences of the Commissioning Council.
Andy Mudd from the well-respected local government research body the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) published a report warning that over the past few years those at the north London Council involved in the awarding and managing of contracts to private contractors, have often ignored both council guidelines and UK competition law.
John Dix resident, one of the infamous Barnet Bloggers recently reported the Council has agreed another £10million be allocated to consultants to deliver the outsourcing One Barnet Programme
The second part of the meeting will include speakers from Aberdeen UNISON, and Edinburgh UNISON. Both of these councils recently decided not to go ahead with outsourcing after taking part in lengthy procurement discussions with a number of private sector contractors. A speaker from Sefton UNISON will talk about why Sefton Council decided to terminate their contract early with Capita Symonds. Capita Symonds is one of the Bidders for one the One Barnet projects.
John Burgess, Branch Secretary UNISON said “We are continuing to seek a meeting with councillors in particular the members of the Cabinet Committee regarding our concerns about the One Barnet Programme. We know from experience that once residents are made aware of One Barnet they are very concerned about the implications. This conference is just one part of a widespread community campaign to bring public scrutiny to the One Barnet experiment.”
End
Note to Editors
1. Barnet Alliance website
http://barnetalliance.org/2012/06/24/barnet-council-not-for-sale-public-conference-saturday-7-july/
2. APSE report
http://www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/Procurement_contract_management.pdf
3. ESSU report: Cost of Consequences of commissioning
4. UNISON branch write to 63 councillors warning of serious gamble with council services
http://www.barnetunison.me.uk/?q=node/911
5. Edinburgh Council dumps privatisation
http://www.unison-edinburgh.org.uk/news/2012/1901.html
6. Aberdeen UNISON wins battle against privatisationhttp://www.unison.org.uk/eastmidlands/news_view.asp?did=7708
7. Sefton Council to end £65m technical services contract with Capita Symonds
Following the merger of the two former Colleges and the recent completion of the middle management restructuring, the next stage of the merge restructuring is to review all service area structures to bring together the two former structures and respond to the requirements of the new organisation. The new management team are planning to issue proposals in relation to these structures for consultation during the Autumn Term, this will effect UNISON members.
At a recent support staff interest group, UNISON raised some queries regarding how the existing curriculum administrative support is undertaken and acknowledged that the structures in place at the two former Colleges operate differently for the provision of this services and offered to assist with the audit of the curriculum administration arrangements currently in place to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current structures and practices, understand the roles currently in place and the requirements for this service going forward.
As a result it has been agreed that UNISON and Organisational Development/HR (OD/HR) will undertake a curriculum admin audit and feed the finding through to the Executive Leadership Group (ELG) for consideration when reviewing the proposed structures going forward.
To undertake this work UNISON and OD/HR will be holding focus group meetings at each site with the different staff groups either currently providing this service or using this service to obtain your input and hear your views. Curriculum admin staff, compliance team staff, curriculum managers and teaching staff will be invited to attending these focus groups. In addition 1-1 meetings will also be held with Academic Heads and Managers of Curriculum Admin and Compliance Team. These focus groups will be held on all sites to obtain your feedback to inform the audit and recommendations being put forward for consideration. The dates the focus groups are on:
· 22 June at Grahame Park Campus (9-10.30 = Admin Staff; 10.30–11.45= Curriculum Managers; 12 noon–1pm teaching staff in room GP/ F224)
· 28 June at Wood Street Campus (1pm -2pm = Teaching staff; 2pm-3pm = Curriculum Managers in room WS/BG09)
· 29 June at Wood Street Campus (1-2pm = Admin Staff in room WS/BF03)
· 19 July at Southgate Campus (10.30-11.30 = Admin Staff; 12noon – 1pm= Teaching Staff; 1pm-2.30pm = Curriculum Managers in room SG/Staff Training Room)
Please note, whilst this information/report will be useful and will be considered by ELG when preparing the proposals for consultation there will still be a consultation process which will be held during the Autumn Term which will give all staff potentially affected by the service area restructuring and UNISON the opportunity to put forward your/their views, comments and alternative proposals for consideration before final decisions are reached regarding the structures and role responsibilities required for the new structure.
Please try to attend one of these sessions as this provides you with an opportunity to voice your views regarding the admin support you require. If you are unable to attend please send your comment/views by email to curriculum admin review inbox.
