At last, after many years of deliberation, countless hours spent trawling through fine detail and some hard fought negotiations, we have finally arrived at a proposal on a new pay and grading structure.

The landmark single status agreement in 1997 initially paved the way for local pay and grading reviews to be conducted as a means of eradicating gender pay discrimination, which has been, for far too long, manifested within local government pay structures. The intervening thirteen years has seen several reports criticising the employers for their lack of progress and the emergence of a legal strategy that in Wakefield alone will recover for our members some £30m in pay compensation.
The new pay and grading structure follows the outcome of the job evaluation scheme, in which all jobs within the Council have been evaluated against a common set of criteria, producing a new rank order of jobs.

If accepted the new pay structure will be based on 12 new grades each consisting of between 3 and 4 spinal column points. All jobs have been placed within one of the 12 new grades.

The vast majority of UNISON members will see their pay increase as a result of the pay and grading review. The additional cost to the council of the new pay structure is thought to be in the region of £6m per year.

There are obviously some members who will either remain the same in respect of their pay or see a proposed reduction. Where a reduction occurs the existing pay will be protected for a period of 2 years, during which time we will work to assist members in trying to recover the position, with the objective being at the end of the protection period earnings are maintained.  

As part of the review the employer sought to recover some of the additional costs by negotiating changes to some terms and conditions, such as, for example, the rate at which overtime and unsocial hours pay is calculated. There is also a new casual and essential car allowance scheme linked to the C02 emissions rather than engine size.
Details of the proposed terms and conditions will be sent to you by the employer within the next few weeks.

Getting to this point in the process has involved many difficult hours of negotiation with the employer and like all negotiations compromises have been reached on both sides. We would have ideally wanted to avoid any reductions in pay and we would not have chosen to diminish any condition of service. But the objective of achieving equal pay for work of equal value had to be balanced against the employer arguments on affordability. Overall the deal is one that we can recommend to members, but in saying that, we are acutely aware that it does not meet the needs of all of our members. We will continue to offer members advice and representation in pursuing appeals and supporting them during the protection period.
The Council will be writing to all employees in January/February and contained in the letter will be all of the information on the new pay and grading structure and the changes to terms and conditions. The letter will obviously be personal to you and will set out amongst other things your existing pay and your new pay grade.

UNISON is recommending the proposed new pay and grading structure and we will be conducting a postal ballot of all members affected in February/March. We will be asking members to vote yes in the ballot and, if a majority of those participating in the ballot follow our recommendation, then we will proceed to sign a collective agreement with the Council and new pay and grading structure will take effect from 1st April 2010.

As well as representing council staff, UNISON represents members working for some privatised companies. One such company is NPS North East Ltd.

UNISON continues to represent members at NPS North East Ltd which is a locally based property design and management consultancy established in October 2004. Many staff including UNISON members previously worked for Design Services based at Normanton Town Hall and were transferred to the new company in 2004, a subsidiary of NPS Group. Many new staff have since joined UNISON and recognise the benefits that membership brings. UNISON is recognised by the MD of NPS Group as the sole representative of staff and all pay and condition agreements are made with UNISON on behalf of all staff.

Located next to ‘Xscape’ in Castleford and overlooking junction 32 of the M62, NPS NE Ltd currently employs 150 staff in all aspects of building design and acts as advisers to WMDC & WDH amongst others. They also give professional advice in matters such as mechanical and electrical systems, structural stability, investigating and reporting on asbestos in buildings and water hygiene management. These last two are of great interest to many.
NPS NE Ltd act as consultants on Water Hygiene and Asbestos and can offer seminars to Council officers, staff and UNISON Stewards in order to increase awareness and hopefully allay many fears.

• Water Hygiene: their Legionella Management Team provides a complete management service of the following procedures:
• A Risk Assessment and production of a planned risk management scheme.
• Production of a logbook to record water monitoring data.
• Review of data, collected by Field Technicians, to identify any remedial action which may be necessary.
• Professional training for on site staff.
• Annual and six monthly inspections.

Read the full story here. For more information on any of the services available at NPS, please contact the Castleford office on 01977 628300, e-mail enquiries@nps.co.uk or visit www.nps.co.uk.

National Position

In 2008 the National Offender Management Service [NOMS] announced large cuts to the National Probation budget. The 2009 budget settlement was to include a 5% cut to the service nationally which amounted to £50 million. However in Oct 2009 Government Ministers announced this cut would be reduced to £24 million which still amounts to an overall cut of 2.86%. In past years this would have meant West Yorkshire Probation receiving the fourth largest share of the increase, however due to Probation budgets being allocated on a Regional basis, and overseen by the Regional Director of Offender Management [DOM], West Yorkshire will have to submit bids to the DOM in order to secure any additional funding. I understand that West Yorkshire have submitted bids to the value of around £1.2 million but at the time of writing this article it is not known if this has been successful.

With regards to the 2010 pay claim; UNISON canvassed Probation members via their respective branches about any potential pay claim which would be submitted in early 2010. In West Yorkshire the membership unanimously supported the view that the preservation of jobs was the number 1 priority for UNISON nationally. Members felt that the second priority was to keep the existing incremental process based on the 3-2-1 principle. Members overwhelmingly thought that the pursuit of a claim for a cost of living rise wasn’t as important as the 2 issues mentioned above.

Nationally UNISON has been in negotiation with Interserve for the last 18 months in an attempt to get the company to apply the same Probation service pay deals to ex Probation staff working on the Interserve Probation contract. As a result of pressure from UNISON, Interserve finally paid all the 2008/9 pay rises which included back pay to 1st April 2008 on 27th Nov 09.

West Yorkshire

Earlier this year West Yorkshire announced that approximately 160 jobs would be lost over the next 3 years. Management are hopeful these losses will come from ‘natural wastage’ and will involve job roles across the work force. How much the impact of reduced budget cuts will affect this is hard to determine at this stage. This is a major worry for UNISON members as the reduction of staff will inevitably mean higher workloads for all staff and more offenders for front line staff to manage.

Richard Nelson
UNISON Probation Steward

Following our sponsorship of the pantomime we are continuing our sponsorship of the theatre itself. Wakefield UNISON is the sponsor of each season’s programme of events at the theatre. In recognition of the sponsorship Wakefield Theatre offers all Wakefield UNISON members discounts to some of the shows. Among the shows coming up this season are:

Billy Pearce
Friday 19 February 2010.
Hot Flush (the ultimate girls
night out) Friday and
Saturday 26, 27 February
The Bootleg Sixties
Thursday 4 March
The Blues Band
Wednesday 24 March
Cider with Rosie
Thursday 8 to
Saturday 10 April.

Tickets can be booked at the box office on 01924 211311 (quoting UNISON) or at the box office by producing proof of membership.

The club came to play a representative side from Wakefield ARL last March. Whilst here our international officer built up a number of links with the club who are the old railway works team and come from an area similar to Wakefield. Because Rugby League is still considered to be a minority sport in Russia we are working on a proposition to host two players from the club in the district for the next amateur rugby league season. Sharlston Rovers, who we sponsor, have said that they will host the players and Featherstone Rovers, Wakefield Wildcats and Wakefield Arl have offered support. This is a major project to help develop rugby league and the main drawback is that a lot of communication is lost in translation. So if anybody knows someone who can help us translate your help would be appreciated? Meanwhile the club have just won the Russian Championship and will be playing in the third round of the challenge cup in March.