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

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.