Dear member

If you have recently received a letter from Capita Pay Roll about having to make up Pension contributions due to having taken strike action please note the following:

HR has confirmed to UNISON this was sent out in error.

HR will be sending out a letter confirming this is the case.

You do not have to respond to the letter or the deadline.

If you have any concerns please contact the branch at contactus@barnetunison.org.uk or telephone 0208 359 2088

Employment Tribunal starts TODAY 27 July 2015

On Monday 8 September 2014 UNISON members working for Capita Re Highways section were informed that statutory redundancy consultation would commence on 10 September 2014. Capita Re have carried out a review of the Highways function against the output specification that forms part of the contract with the London borough of Barnet.

The proposal was that they can make efficiencies by changing work practices and use of technology alongside the need to reduce costs circa £65k with a reduction in the Highways fee by Barnet Council as from July 2014.

Capita Re currently employs 284 staff.

The current staffing establishment for Highways is 23 staff and all of them have been issued at risk of redundancy letters.

The proposal seeks to make 10 redundancies and create six new posts. However, the six new posts are not redeployment opportunities for the staff at risk.

Over the past few weeks meetings have been taking place with staff as they are having to go through an interview selection process.

UNISON has requested some detailed financial information about the proposed shortfall in funding and expressed concern about the ability of the service to deliver the service with reduced numbers of staff.

UNISON members have expressed concern and disappointment that when Barnet Council Cabinet Committee agreed to the award the DRS contract to Capita on Monday 24 June 2013 they did so in the knowledge that this was a contract which would grow and there would not be any redundancies.

As members have pointed out in Table 7.1 DRS Staff Numbers

of the report the Highways Teams are down to increase not decrease.

Update

Last week the Trade Unions were informed that Capita Re would be extending the consultation period. The reason being Capita Re had been summoned to attend the Environment Committee members briefing on 2 October at 7 pm Hendon Town Hall.

UNISON will be attending the above meeting in order to find out if there are any proposals which may mean the redundancy proposals will be withdrawn.

This week marked a significant landmark in what has been an exceptionally stressful time for former Barnet Council staff who worked across Back Office services such as Revenues & Benefits, Customer Services, Pensions & Human Resources, and Information Services. We were informed that out of 223 Capita CSG staff who were being consulted 130 staff will be made redundant on the CSG Capita contract.

I want to take this opportunity to look back at the original proposal and see what has changed.

Having reviewed the original Capita bid it is clear there have been some changes since the Capita bid was first disclosed in November 2012.

In order to help I have provided a table which provides staffing figures for Capita CSG services.

The first set of figures are taken from the first Barnet Council report which was published in December 2012, which identified Capita as the preferred bidder. These figures represent what Capita originally proposed would be the staffing figures for services by March 2014.

The second set of figures (End of consultation) are the actual staffing figures for CSG following the redundancy consultation. Please note only the services shaded in yellow were part of the 90 day consultation which started on Monday 7 October 2013.

Capita 350 local jobs going going …..

Would you take a 50% cut in pay, lose your pension and move three hundred miles?

That is what is facing former Barnet Council workers in Barnet if they want to follow the jobs Capita plans to transfer to Belfast, Carlisle, Blackburn, and Southampton among some of the various Capita locations.

As part of our statutory consultation with Capita, UNISON has been faced with the task of trying to find ways of mitigating the redundancies. As part of this process Capita as the employer has a responsibility to try and reach an agreement with the trade unions. At the start of consultation UNISON asked Capita to reconsider their business model but this was rejected and UNISON was asked to come up with an alternative.

But when you consider that Capita proposal is to make a 45% operational saving, export hundreds of jobs across the UK and employ staff on low wages and a poor pension it became clear that there was no chance for locally delivered service was going to be able to compete. Who could live in London on those terms & conditions? So far only a few staff have expressed an interest in moving with the job to some of the propose Capita locations. Secondly, because of commercially sensitive information it was impossible for Capita to be able to share the requisite information to enable a competitive alternative to be proposed. Lastly, Capita along with BT had a team of experts working on their proposed bid over a 18 month period which must have cost at least £1million something our UNISON branch does not have at its disposal.

“BUT where does this all end?”

George Osborne has announced even bigger cuts to public services, what does this mean for local jobs even in the north. Birmingham Council are facing enormous cuts and there is pressure on the long standing Capita Contract (service Birmingham). There is talk of terminating the contract and pressure for the Council to follow Barnet Councils lead and publish the contract for public scrutiny. What I suspect will happen is the contract will be re-negotiated and perhaps services exported out of Birmingham to another country in Europe of perhaps Asia.

“How many jobs can be exported out of the UK?”

I think the reliance on outsourcing services has become so dominant that public bodies are going to be held to ransom as the pressure to deliver savings creates the scenario whereby the private sector offer “off shoring” as the way to deliver more savings.

Back to Barnet.

It does look like that there are going to be significant redundancies