Weekly Bog Special: “Setting the Record Straight: Our Reply to TBG’s CEO”

Austerity, Local, London Living Wage, News, Solidarity, TBG Flex, Trades Dispute, UNISON Campaign

Hi everyone,

I am responding to the TBGs CEO (Elliott Sweetman) email to all staff sent on Thursday 10 September 2026.

The CEO’s message this week talks about one thing: the 3.3% NJC pay uplift, applied at his discretion. What it doesn’t mention is what we actually asked for.

In January 2026, Barnet UNISON submitted a full pay and terms claim to TBG on behalf of Barnet Homes and Your Choice Barnet members. It covered:

  • A £15/hour floor for the lowest-paid staff — costed by TBG itself at a fraction of one percent of budget
  • Proper overtime and night-shift rates, instead of a flat rate regardless of when you work
  • A shorter working week — cut from 37.5 to 36 hours, the same as Barnet Council staff
  • The same occupational sick pay scheme as Barnet Council staff
  • More annual leave, moving toward full parity with LBB’s 31 days
  • A single, transparent pay and grading structure, instead of the opaque TBG Flex model
  • No loss of existing rights as a condition of any settlement
  • And access to the LGPS for everyone — not just staff on legacy contracts.

TBG rejected the claim outright in March, refusing even a zero-cost request for a joint meeting to talk it through. In July, after the consultative ballot returned 97% (YCB) and 100% (Barnet Homes) in favour of action, we met TBG again — and they refused to negotiate on any single demand.

Every one of the demands above is covered by the same NJC/Green Book framework Sweetman quotes so selectively. TBG was set up specifically so its workers don’t get these basic terms — that’s not an accident, it’s the whole point of the model. TBG is a leftover from the Tories’ “easy council” playbook: strip terms out of the council, hand the work to an arm’s-length company, call it efficiency.

It also sits directly against the government’s own Employment Rights Act, passed this year, which is meant to strengthen workers’ rights — not give councils a way to dodge them through corporate structures.

And notice what the CEO’s own letter admits. At no point in any negotiation has TBG committed to automatically honouring the NJC pay decision for its staff, whatever it is, every year. His letter confirms it in black and white: this increase was applied “at our discretion,” not because TBG is bound to it. Council staff get the NJC settlement as a matter of contractual right. TBG staff get it only if and when management decides to be generous. That’s not a technicality — it’s about who holds the power. It’s another reason this vote matters: a “yes” is the only way to turn a discretionary favour into something you can actually rely on. 

Pensions are the biggest issue here, by far. TBG Flex was set up so that every new starter goes onto a contract with no LGPS access at all — just a private scheme with a fraction of the employer contribution. Only around a quarter of the combined workforce still has LGPS, and that share falls every year, because every new hire goes straight onto Flex. Giving everyone LGPS access would cost TBG in the region of £5 million a year — real money, but this is a company wholly owned by the council, and the council decides how much it funds TBG in the first place.

That’s the heart of it. You work in the same services as council staff, often in the same buildings, doing work the council could not run without you — but on a worse pension, worse sick pay, less leave, and a working week set up specifically to keep you off council terms.

Barnet Group workers should not be treated as second-class council workers. That’s not a slogan — it’s the deliberate design of the TBG Flex model, and TBG’s own board has said so in writing.

The CEO’s letter offers to sit down and discuss this with anyone, one-to-one or in a team meeting. But he won’t negotiate even the most basic improvements for our members — in the worst cost of living crisis in living memory. An offer to talk is not the same as an offer to move.

The CEO’s letter, landing in week two of the statutory ballot and talking only about pay, is timed to make you think this is a smaller fight than it is. It isn’t.

Vote. Whichever way you decide, make sure it’s an informed decision — not one shaped by a letter that leaves out almost everything we actually asked for.

Questions about the ballot or anything in this message — contact the branch: contactus@barnetunison.org.uk

 You will be receiving text messages asking if you have voted please respond.

Solidarity 

End.