Branch Secretary Weekly Message Monday 7th September 2026

Monday 7th September 2026

Weekly Blog — speaking truth to power – Restructures what are your rights.

 

Restructures are happening across this council all the time, in some corner of the organisation or another. Most members never think about the process until the day it lands on their own desk. By then it’s too late to learn the rules from scratch. So, this week I want to set out plainly what happens when your service is restructured, what rights you actually have, and why the moment to get in touch with us is the day you hear the word “restructure,” not the day you get a letter about redundancy.

 

What actually happens

When management propose a restructure, they’re supposed to consult you formally before anything is decided. That means at least ten days’ notice of the meeting where consultation starts, and a proper written pack explaining what’s changing and why. Before that meeting even happens, we as your union should be briefed by management so we know what’s coming.

 

Once consultation opens, anyone whose post might go gets told individually that they’re “at risk.” That’s not the same as being made redundant. It means your post is on the list for job matching, where your current role gets compared against roles in the new structure. If there’s a close enough match, you slot straight in. If there are fewer posts than people, you go into a ring-fenced selection process instead.

 

Only after all of that is exhausted, if there’s genuinely no role for you, does redundancy notice get issued. And even then, you stay eligible for redeployment right up to your last day.

 

Where it can go wrong for you

On paper this all sounds fair. In practice, it depends entirely on management doing it properly, and on you knowing your rights well enough to hold them to it. You’re entitled to bring a union rep into every meeting, formal or informal. If you move to a lower graded post through this process, pay protection should apply. If you disagree with a job match, you’ve got fourteen calendar days to appeal it. If you’re made redundant, you’ve got fourteen calendar days to appeal that too. Calendar days, not working days, so a letter that lands on a Friday eats into your weekend as well.

 

Fourteen days sounds like plenty until you’re the one staring at a letter you don’t fully understand, trying to work out if the process was followed correctly. Most of the mistakes I see aren’t made deliberately. They happen because nobody was checking the detail at the time it mattered, and by the time someone does check, the clock has already run down.

 

That’s the whole point of getting us involved early. We can’t fix a flawed process after the decision’s been rubber-stamped nearly as easily as we can shape it while it’s still open.

 

So if your service is facing change, or you’ve had any hint that it might, don’t wait for a formal letter. Contact your steward or the branch office as soon as you hear anything, even if it’s only rumour at this stage. We’d rather talk you through ten false alarms than find out about a genuine one after the appeal deadline’s gone.

 

Take care of yourselves and each other.

 

Best wishes John Burgess Branch Secretary, Barnet UNISON