Dear Colleagues
It is very important that all of our Barnet Council members read the following information as there has been an overpayment made by the Council and they are seeking to reclaim it by making a deduction from your salary for a period of four months starting in March 2015. Or you can download the report here
Below is a statement from Barnet Council.
National Pay Award – Pay Adjustments
Following the national pay agreement at the end of 2014, we have been asked to make adjustments to your pay to ensure you receive the correct salary.
In June 2014, Capita were asked by the Council to apply an increase of 1% to the spine points with effect from 1st April 2014. This was based on the National Employers’ position that this was the final offer on the table in negotiations between employers and Trade Unions. This increase was applied by the Council in good faith to help staff after a number of years of pay freezes and to apply what we expected to be the final position.
During the year, at a national level, the trade unions and employers were in protracted negotiations and eventually agreed to a 2.2% pay increase, applied from 1st January 2015, and not back-dated to April 2014 as expected.
This means that there is a difference in what has been paid to local government (green book) employees, and what should have been paid (for 9 months April 2014-December 2014). This will affect basic salaries and overtime payments.
We are therefore making adjustments to pay where an overpayment has been made. (Please note, had the 2.2% applied from April 2014 we would have been backdating the increase instead). This is to ensure the correct pay, tax and pension contributions are made.
To do this, we are intending to make the deductions over the next 4 months, starting in March 2015, to avoid any significant impact by taking a single payment. Any adjustments to tax, national insurance contributions and pension will be made automatically.
If the proposed repayment schedules will cause particularly hardship to individuals, the council will consider alternative proposals. Employees should agree these directly with their line manager who should notify the payroll team of the agreed arrangements.
The adjustment will appear as BAS PAY ARR T/S on the payslip.
If you have any queries please contact BarnetHRPayroll@capita-services.co.uk
Please note, the cut-off deadline for payroll this month is the 10th March.
1. Barnet UNISON response to above statement
a) National Pay negotiations
This is a quick recap on the history of the national pay negotiations. As all members will know UNISON campaigned against the 1% offer which is why we took strike action on 10 July last year.
Throughout the summer UNISON was campaigning to escalate the strike in October 2014. However a revised offer was put to our national negotiators and so we were asked by our negotiators to consult our members. Our branch officers looked at the offer and realised it was not a better offer and therefore advised our members to reject the offer. Our members overwhelmingly rejected the final offer. We passed this information on to our national negotiators, however, other UNISON members across the UK voted to accept the final offer.
You can view details of the final offer here
b) UNISON Pay Conference 24 March 2015
I can report there has been serious concerns raised by a larger number of UNISON branches across the UK about the final offer which fails to deal with the ‘cost of living crisis’ being experienced by our members. As a result of this concern a Special UNISON Local Government Conference has been convened to talk solely about Pay on 24 March 2015. Our branch will provide feedback on the outcome of this conference.
Once we had the news that the revised offer had been agreed, Barnet UNISON immediately wrote to the Council seeking confirmation as to whether the Council would be looking to claim the money back. It wasn’t until January that we were first made aware the Council was seeking to reclaim the money back.
Over the last four weeks there have been a number of meetings about what is being reclaimed and when. Unfortunately school staff have been contacted by Capita HR Payroll before negotiations had been concluded. It is important that all of our members in schools are aware that they can re-negotiate the repayments.
c) How did this happen?
This is a frequently asked question. In the past Barnet Council has never paid the national pay offer whilst negotiations are still on-going. This meant that quite often negotiations were never agreed until September and subsequently all staff would receive a backdated amount in their October pay roll and their spinal point adjusted. As a result of paying early and the revised offer not starting until January 2015, the Council suddenly realised they had made an overpayment of nine months’ pay. As far as we know none of the contractors who are paying the revised national pay award made the payment earlier and so do not have any issues about reclaiming overpayments.
d) Support for members.
We understand that for members these deductions will come as a surprise and may cause hardship.
It is therefore important that all members understand they have the right to re-negotiate the repayments. In the Council statement it states you should speak to your line manager in schools it may be your Head teacher.
If you need help with the negotiations please contact the UNISON office on 020 8 359 2088 or email contactus@barnetunison.org.uk
National Pay Award update for TUPED ex Barnet Council staff
I have been contacted by ex-Council staff working for contractors who should have by now passed on the revised final offer. For any staff still unclear as to what they should have been paid, we have the national pay award, which we can provide, which explains:
1. The non- consolidated payment which should have been paid in December 2014
2. The new pay scales including the 2.2% from 1 January 2015.
I understand that some colleagues may have heard there have been problems with regards to the payment of the offer to the Council workforce. As far as I am aware this is specific only to Barnet Council staff. You can read about what has happened here.
.jpg)
.jpg)