URGENT Street Cleansing meeting 5.45-6.15 am Weds 26 March 1st Floor Depot.
To view flyer click on the link below
https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2025.03.21-STREET-CLEANSING-CONTRACT-CHANGE-1.pdf
Barnet UNISON depot workers welcomed special guest speaker from Thompson’s Solicitors.
The guest speaker spoke about the free services for UNISON members provided by Thompsons.
The main part of the discussion was around reporting accidents at work.
Depot work environment.
In any depot, where loading and unloading, bending and stretching defines the day, the importance of reporting accidents cannot be overstated.
For depot workers, whose labour is physically demanding, even seemingly minor incidents can have significant consequences. A sprained ankle dismissed as a “little twist,” or a cut brushed off as a “scratch,” can escalate into serious, long-term health issues if left unreported.
Reporting accidents is not about assigning blame; it’s about safeguarding wellbeing. It’s about creating a culture where a worker feels empowered to speak up without fear of reprisal. When an accident is reported, it triggers a chain of events designed to prevent recurrence. It allows for a thorough investigation, identifying potential hazards and implementing corrective measures. This not only protects the individual involved but also their colleagues, fostering a safer working environment for everyone.
Moreover, prompt reporting ensures access to necessary medical attention and support. Early intervention can significantly reduce recovery time and prevent complications. Ignoring an injury can lead to chronic pain, reduced mobility, and even permanent disability, impacting not only a worker’s livelihood but also their quality of life.
Ultimately, reporting accidents is a fundamental act of self-preservation. It’s an acknowledgment that a worker’s health and safety are paramount, and that their wellbeing matters. In the demanding environment of a manual depot, where physical resilience is crucial, reporting every incident, no matter how small, is a vital step towards ensuring a safe and healthy working life.
Barnet UNISON will use our #DepotWednesday meetings to remind and encourage our members to work safely and report, report and report.
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It is your democratic right to attend and participate in your UNISON AGM.
It is important that members register to attend.
You have two choices:
You can join in person at the Colindale office, or you can join online.
Please click on the link below to register to join the meeting.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcrd-GorTsrGtQzqR9L3h9L-z1mKymCRU_i
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Before our members read this article. It is important to note that there is no detriment to the best of our knowledge to the Pension Scheme because of the unlawful actions identified in the report going to Full Council on Tuesday 28 January 2025. This is confirmed in paragraph 10.2 of the report.
“It should also be emphasised that as the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) is a defined benefit scheme there is no impact as a result of these transactions on members’ benefits.”
What has happened?
UNISON has only recently discovered that something unlawful has taken place involving payments to the Council’s Pension Scheme.
The matter was first publicly discussed Pension Fund Committee – Tuesday 14th January 2025 7.00 pm.
You can listen to the discussion by clicking on the link below. You need to scroll 1 hour and 6 minutes to hear the discussion about the unlawful payments.
The next piece of critical information came to our attention when the reports were published for the Full Council on Tuesday 28 January 2025.
One damning paragraph stands out:
“5.2.1 After taking advice, and based on the information available the Monitoring Officer and the Section151 Officer are of the view that the Additional Payments and the Repayments were unlawful.”
Source: Report to all Elected members of London Borough of Barnet Under Section 5(2)(a) of the local Government and Housing Act 1989 and Section 114 (2)(a) Local Government Finance Act 1988 By Jessica Farmer Monitoring Officer and Kevin Bartle Chief Finance Officer (Section 151 Officer).
https://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s87758/Appendix%20A%20joint%20report%20S5S114.pdf
The report uses the term unlawful ten times unlawfully once and unlawfulness once.
It is a shocking report.
UNISON recommends that members read the above report that is being discussed at Council meeting.
The two paragraphs set out what happened:
“4.2 The Council (acting as a scheme employer) made a one-off prepayment of £20,477,000 to the Fund in April 2020 (“the Prepayment”) instead of secondary contributions for the years 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23. This was because the Council was advised that a Prepayment would save the Council money compared with making secondary contributions over three years. The Council received leading counsel’s advice, which was taken without reference to the Monitoring Officer, that making the Prepayment was lawful in principle.”
“4.4 After the Prepayment, the Council continued to make periodic payments of (in effect) secondary contributions for the three financial years 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 (“Additional Payments”). These were made contrary to the Rates and adjustments Certificate. In effect, the Additional Payments would duplicate the Prepayment, and so officers also arranged that the Fund would repay most of the Additional Payment back to the Council in three annual repayments (“Repayments”). Because of a lack of documentation and staff turnover, the Monitoring Officer and Section 151 Officer have not been able to understand clearly when or why the Additional Payments and Repayments were arranged. As far as the Monitoring Officer and current Section 151 Officer can tell, the most likely explanation is that, at the time, officers believed that the outcome of these fund flows would be advantageous for the Council in accounting terms, while not being disadvantageous to the Fund. In any event, the Additional Payments were made and two of the three planned Repayments have also been made: £6,508,000 in October 2020 and £7,574,000 in October 2021.”
For those of us who are not financial experts the two paragraphs explain that not only was an unlawful payment of £20,477,000 made into the Pension Fund but that a further three payments were made of the next three years which resulted in effect in a double payment into the Pension Fund. Towards the end of the final paragraph the Council explains that the Council clawed back two payments back but that once the unlawful payments had been discovered everything was put on hold.
Many of our members reading this report will know that they all are expected to follow Council procedures and understand what happens if you don’t follow. Many of our members will be wondering about who has the powers to authorise spend. The responsibilities for senior managers are set out in what is referred to as the Scheme of Delegation which you can read on the Council website here https://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s24780/Appendix%20D%20-%20Scheme%20of%20Delegated%20Authority%20to%20Officers.pdf
There are a number of questions UNISON has about how this could happen, but our immediate concern is in regard to the numerous redundancy consultations taking place.
£7.8million is a lot of money that is owed to the Council.
At this moment in time the Council is coming to a close on a number of redundancy consultations which, if confirmed, are going to mean staff will be made redundant. Vacancies will be deleted in teams where there is already increasing pressure on the workforce to deliver more with less resources and to work in a job where their pay has failed to keep up with the cost-of-living crisis.
It is UNISON’s understanding, and we would be happy to publicly correct it if we have misunderstood the report above, that Barnet Council is attempting to find a way to retrieve £7,804,000 back from the Council’s Pension Fund.
£7,804,000 is a lot of money and it is UNISON’s view that if this money were back in the Council’s bank account, then it could be used to mitigate some of the redundancies/cuts to public services which are about to be signed off by Barnet Council.
In the meantime, we have several questions.
Recommendations:
As a result of the breaking news UNISON is demanding the following:
Ever since we published our article called Three Chief Executives and a Plumber, we have been inundated with questions about The Barnet Group (TBG).
Barnet UNISON published three animations which were put together with the help of our Barnet UNISON reps in TBG
Here is Animation Number Two which appears to have been screened in London Docklands.
After watching this animation we strongly recommend you reading our article Three Chief Executives and a Plumber, here https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/2024/10/18/barnet-council-the-tale-of-three-chief-executives-and-one-plumber/
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Ever since we published our article called Three Chief Executives and a Plumber, we have been inundated with questions about The Barnet Group (TBG).
Barnet UNISON published three animations which were put together with the help of our Barnet UNISON reps in TBG
Here is Animation Number One which appears to have been viewed in the Council Main Office in Colindale.
After watching this animation we strongly recommend you reading our article Three Chief Executives and a Plumber, here https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/2024/10/18/barnet-council-the-tale-of-three-chief-executives-and-one-plumber/
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On 25 April 2024 at the formal meeting with the former Chief Executive in the JNCG about the agreement to move grades A to E starting from 1 April 2024. It was agreed that Barnet Council would update UNISON on this matter in a few days.
It is worth noting in January 2024 when the trade unions were informed that Chief Executive and Director of Resources had agreed to the changes and payment from 1 April 2024, we were told that implementation would not take place until September due to concerns about Oracle, but we were assured that the payments would be backdated to 1 April 2024.
In March 2024, Barnet Council HR informed Head Teachers of the proposals to move their staff on Grades A-E. Feedback from Head Teachers was that they were supportive of this decision.
On 19 July 2024 the trade unions were formally notified that there would be a delay and the Council “would be in a position to implement changes to grades A-E towards the end of this calendar year.”
On 16 September 2024 at a formal meeting with the interim Chief Executive UNISON was informed that Barnet Council would not be able to fund this proposal and that it would not be backdated.
Barnet Council stated they want the implementation date to be from 1st April 2025 they went on to say they were waiting to hear of local government finance settlement before categorically 100% confirming this. If the budget on 30th Oct was bad news for local government financing, then this date cannot be guaranteed adding that once the budget for 25/26 is set, a firm implementation date will be confirmed with trade unions.
Following this meeting UNISON organised workplace meetings of our members which led to members submitting signed collective letters requesting that the decision not to implement from 1 April 2024 be reconsidered.
At that meeting our members were clearly upset over the handling of this matter and requested that UNISON record a trade dispute over failure to honour an agreement to implement the uplift from the 1 April 2024.
On 6 November UNISON emailed the interim chief executive formally registering a dispute adding that UNISON was still open to meetings to find a resolution, but confirming that we are now beginning UNISON’s internal processes for applying for an industrial action ballot
Late on Friday 8 November 2024 UNISON received the following memo which we are sharing as a hard copy and via email to our members to read and report back to our next mass meeting on Wednesday 4 December 2024, 1st Floor in new building at the following times.
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