Depot Wednesday: Injured at Work
To view flyer click on link below
https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/5-March-Injury-At-Work-meeting-1.pdf
Category: Health and Safety
Depot Wednesday: Round Changes meeting
To view flyer click on link below.
https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/round-changes-26-feb-003.pdf
***Barnet UNISON AGM Tuesday 25 February 2025 4-5.30 pm ***
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
End.
“Withdraw the compulsory redundancies”: £7,804,000
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.
- Was there a scheme of delegation for the Pension Fund?
- If not, why not?
- Who made the decision to make the prepayment?
- Who decided to make the decision to subsequently carry on with payments that the prepayment was intended to cover?
- Who can authorise a payment of up to £20million
- What was the cost of the initial legal advice in 2020?
- Who has authority to seek counsel’s opinion
- Who did seek counsel’s opinion in this case?
- Was counsel’s opinion seen by the monitoring officer?
- If yes what was their opinion, if not why not?
- Was the scheme was initiated by the council acting as the fund or as the employer i.e. did the pension fund ask them to do it?
- What has been the total cost of legal advice and tax advice taken so far?
- Has anyone been subject to a disciplinary investigation?
Recommendations:
As a result of the breaking news UNISON is demanding the following:
- The redundancies are withdrawn in anticipation that the monies owed can mitigate the need to make the redundancies in this year.
Barnet UNISON Xmas meeting 18 December 5.45 am
“No stone left unturned” What is The Barnet Group (TBG)? Number 6: Part Two
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/
End.
“No stone left unturned” What is The Barnet Group (TBG)? Number 5: Part One
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/
End.
Barnet Council interim Chief Executive responds to UNISON members on grading dispute.
Brief history to this grading dispute.
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.
- On 23 September 2024 UNISON emailed to signed letters from hundreds of our members asking the interim chief executive to reconsider.
- On 17 October UNISON emailed the interim chief executive if they were going to respond to staff.
- On 18 October the interim chief executive emailed UNISON to say they were speaking with Executive Director of Environment and proposed that the communication would be sent at the end of the month.
- On 18 October UNISON confirmed that would work as we had a mass meeting of members on 6 November 2024.
- On Wednesday 6 November 2024 UNISON attended a mass meeting of members where they confirmed that they had not received any communication from you.
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.
- 5.45-6.15 am
- 6.30- 7 am
PLEASE READ MEMO FROM INTERIM CHIEF EXECUTIVE BY CLICKING ON LINK BELOW.
https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/241108-GradesA2E-LetterResponse-CS.pdf
End.
32 – Another mental health social worker resignation at Barnet Council
Firstly, Community Care magazine published another excellent article on the ongoing mental health social worker dispute.
You can read the article here.
‘We walked out for 81 days and the service is as unsafe as it was before’
See some of the quotes below
‘We walked out for 81 days and the service is as unsafe as it was before’ (former Barnet Council mental health social worker).
“We walked out for 81 days and it made no difference. They aren’t listening to us. It’s as dangerous a service as it was when the dispute started.”
“Coming back after strike, the management don’t acknowledge it, we raise problems and they just don’t go anywhere,” says another social worker.
“My concern is, how can I practise safely as a social worker? I really can’t do a proper job. It’s just so frustrating.”
“I’m not leaving because of the strike, I’m leaving because, through the strike, it’s become very apparent that nothing is going to get any better, as they don’t seem to value our opinion or our feedback.”
The reporting on the feedback is accurate. It is important the reasons for the exodus of social workers is recorded publicly. For some reason senior officers of the London Borough of Barnet have been ‘doubling down’ in their responses to social workers leaving. Both in meetings with senior managers and in exit interviews our members have been very clear why they have left, yet senior management is promoting a “nothing to see here, please move along” position to all press enquiries.
Feedback from our members is that morale is at rock bottom and it is highly likely more staff will be leaving as soon as they have secured their own escape plan.
The tragedy is that we are talking about mental health services. Last year the Guardian newspaper quoted hospital bosses: “Mental healthcare in England is a national emergency” https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/oct/09/mental-healthcare-in-england-is-a-national-emergency-say-hospital-bosses
Over a decade of underfunding alongside increasing numbers of people needing mental health services has devasted the workplace and services.
Earlier this month a major strike took place, “Nurses are among a group of mental health workers in Manchester who are striking today over “unsafe” staffing levels.”
“Unison North West regional organiser Paddy Cleary said: “These early intervention mental health workers take their duties seriously, but heavy workloads, insufficient funding and unsafe staffing levels have left them with no choice but to strike.”
Back here in Barnet the indifference being shown by senior officers to the huge turnover of both permanent and agency social workers is nothing short of scandalous. Each time someone leaves it means another relationship has ended for the service user. The other worrying fact is that senior management does not appear concerned that they are unable to recruit experienced mental health social workers. They are reliant on bringing in social workers with no experience of working in mental health or taking on former student social workers with little or no experience of working with service users with complex mental health needs.
“Barnet UNISON has been clear since the beginning of this dispute on 1 September 2023, that we will not tolerate our members working in an unsafe workplace. It is bad for staff and bad for service users. We understand why social workers have left and are planning to leave. Barnet Council mental health social work teams were once a trail blazing service for crisis work. Today it is a service that is out of control and the worst part is that as our members have said ‘they don’t seem to value our opinion or our feedback’.” John Burgess, Branch Secretary Barnet UNISON.
End.
Big Thanks to Libby Nolan former #UNISON President
Introduction.
Barnet UNISON is a proud active fighting UNISON branch with a long history of backing our members when they want to fight back.
We have been consistently one of the highest recruiting UNISON branches in London and recently achieved a lawful strike ballot on in the UNISON National Pay ballot.
When are members are in dispute it is important that strikers receive support from others within the wider UNISON family and across the trade union movement.
Below is a message of support for our Barnet UNISON strikers.