Sunday October 31, 2010 at 10:16am
It is quite clear that the Coalition with media support is engaging in public sector cuts, but have they thought of some of the consequences.
I have read that government plans to make cuts in the public sector could well increase the incidence of workplace stress, with a spokesman for the Public and Commercial Services Union stating that having an axe hanging above employees' heads will "create a certain tension". A Richard Simcox made this observation in response to figures from the ....
Monday October 25, 2010 at 7:38am
A report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, shows that a third of all employers reporting an increase in stress-related absence. More than a third noted an increase in mental health problems such as anxiety and depression – a big rise on last year’s survey when one-fifth reported an increase. But only one-fifth of organisations had increased their focus on employee well-being and health promotion, suggesting more could be done. The survey found t....
Monday October 25, 2010 at 7:07am
Sir Nigel Knowles, joint Chief Exectutive of DLA writes in the Telegraph"that lawyers and legal firms need to evolve and embrace the changed market conditions. While there will remain some circumstances where the billable hour is justified, my firm conviction is that its relevance is shrinking considerably and it will rapidly become an anachronism. "
"My firm is seeing more and more clients demand to be paid on a fixed-fee "retainer" basis, or on a capped fee arran....
Saturday October 23, 2010 at 7:34am
Whether we wish to face up to it or not, many organisations in the public and private sector are in crisis as their rasisin etre is missing.
Organisations need an ethical framework, but the vast majority are unbothered.
Within this context, the paper below was published this month and presented in a speech to the Chairmen and CEOs of the UK FTSE350 corporations by Ian Powell, the PwC UK Chairman.http://www.pwc.co.uk/eng/issues/trust.html
A key person involved in the paper....
Friday October 22, 2010 at 3:46pm
As part of the new orthodoxy and with much encouragement from the government, the trend towards merged councils took a significant step today with proposals to create the UK's first "super council" with the the London boroughs of Westminster, Hammersmith & Fulham, and Kensington & Chelsea proposing to merge all their services, from schools and refuse collection to child protection.Andy Sawford, chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit think tank has go....
Thursday October 21, 2010 at 10:24am
In my mediation training seminars, there is a very strong emphasis on the importance of soft skills in managing disputes conflict.
Where managers fall short is often not what they say which can often be totally justified, but rather how they say it.
When human resource staff become mediators as such they need to avoid the perception of pre-judging.
With this in mind, consider Peter Oborne is the Daily Telegraph's analysis on George Osborne's speech yesterday announcing the CSR....
Wednesday October 20, 2010 at 9:45am
The Comprehensive Spending Review is being presented to Parliament and we now have a better picture of what is involved with the public sector cuts.
It is still early days but here are some of the issues which public sector managers and their human resources departments have to communicate.
1 Formulation of vision. Any successful change management and redundancy programme has to give some kind of meaning and healing through the pain. Already some bodies are doing this by f....
Tuesday October 19, 2010 at 9:27am
One of the issues which the public sector has to decide is to what extent they should apply redundancies in order to implement savings.
No doubt redundancies will be announced flowing from Defence cuts today and the Public Sector Spending Review 2010.
What is interesting and an issue we are looking at our White Paper on Redundancies and Change Management is the possibility of costing how much a redundancy is to an organisation.
Yes, you have statutory redundancy costs which is set in a R....
Monday October 18, 2010 at 6:37am
According to a recent article in the Scottish Sun, the Conservatives in Scotland are attacking Scotland's public sector "sick-note" culture - and using a new hotline to cure it. Figures released by the party showed Scots councils' staff were off ill up to three weeks a year on average.
Scottish Tory Finance spokesman Derek Brownlee said the scheme - currently on trial in the NHS in England - would drastically reduce absences. Under it, workers....
Friday October 15, 2010 at 11:17am
I am pleased to inform clients and readers that Human Law Mediation is going to produce a White Paper on how to cope with redundancy and change programmes without staff disputes. This White Paper provides a complete road map for bodies who are going through redundancy programmes and other major change as a result of public sector funding cuts.
It discusses the key steps you can take to a pain free solution to public sector funding cuts. It includes details of how you can set....
Thursday October 14, 2010 at 8:58am
It is being reported that ministers are going to announce today that 200 public sector bodies will be axed . The intention is to save millions of pounds.
Oh, the high minded intentions of a government with a mission.
It is worth reflecting that Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher had high intentions of cutting quangos. Both failed.
A report published in July by the Institute for Government charity warned that cutting quangos would not save large amounts of public money.
This is precisely my ex....
Wednesday October 13, 2010 at 10:36am
Many of us have heard about Sir Philip Green's report into the waste in the public sector, but what has not been covered are the wasted legal costs in Employment Tribunal which public sector bodies have to deal with.
For example this has been reported in the Driffield Times.
"The level of animosity felt by some injured or sick officers towards their seniors was highlighted at an employment tribunal in Newcastle brought by 44-year-old Pc Alison Doyle against Northumbria Police. She was on ....
Tuesday October 12, 2010 at 9:50am
The Telegraph writes that all 16,000 employees of Everything Everywhere, the mobile phone company created by the merger of Orange and T-Mobile, were told last month whether or not their jobs were safe at mass meetings across the country. Up to 1,200 middle managers and back office staff who could lose their jobs by the end of the Christmas holidays were shown a red light and told they were "at risk". Other staff saw the light go yellow, which meant they must re-apply for their existing....
Monday October 11, 2010 at 1:42pm
Sir Philip Green's report into public sector efficiency is coming out and is being trawled by him on the media. I am aware that Sky and the BBC have interviewed him.
In his interview with Robert Peston, he is keen to point out that the savings he is suggesting would not involve a single public-sector redundancy: all of the squeeze would be on private sector suppliers. A recommendation - which he made in his interview with Mr. Peston but is not in the report - is that....
Monday October 11, 2010 at 8:22am
I have read that health and council jobs in the Borders are at risk through a possible merger of departments to cut costs.
NHS Borders, NHS Lothian, NHS Fife, NHS Tayside and NHS Forth Valley will look at sharing more back-office departments and systems at a meeting later this month. Possibilities are also being explored with the relevant councils and a report on progress is expected to be published before the end of November. Mr Egan pointed out that there were five different HR director....
Sunday October 10, 2010 at 7:08am
Beyond all of the recent headlines in the public sector, it is worth both government and trade unions thinking about some hard facts. Public sector productivity growth is behind behind productivity growth in the private sector. In short, we are paying a lot more but the extra money is buying less.
Efficiency varies widely between providers. The public sector is not one monolith. Performance varies.
Performance management has in most cases been undermined by its lack ....
Friday October 8, 2010 at 2:36pm
According to the Guardian, the government faces a multibillion-pound bill to close up to 180 quangos and in some cases it could be a decade before any savings are felt.
The Cabinet Office is poised to publish a list of the organisations facing closure or merger in its "bonfire of the quangos" next week. But private papers reveal that in several cases the liabilities from pensions, redundancies and rental contracts could outweigh any of the savings being claimed for up to 10 years. The....
Thursday October 7, 2010 at 12:10pm
We now know that millions of public sector workers face a cut in their take-home pay and a delay in retirement to the age of 65, under pension reforms. The government is poised to adopt wide-ranging changes to the "gold-plated" public sector pensions to be recommended by Labour's former work and pensions secretary, Lord Hutton. Union leaders warn pensions are the one issue that will affect all public sector workers and therefore most likely to trigger a general strike.
Stand by for th....
Tuesday October 5, 2010 at 3:29pm
The new Equality Act is going to mean that employers will no longer be able to ask job candidates about their health and pay secrecy clauses hiding differences between what men and women earn have been scrapped.
The Act came into effect on 1 October. The main changes are making pay secrecy 'gagging' clauses unenforceable, putting restrictions on employers asking job applicants questions about disability or health, making employers responsible for protecting their staff from harassment by c....
Friday October 1, 2010 at 1:16pm
According to a recent survey, the oldest people in society will be hit hardest by cuts in public spending – losing almost a sixth of their household income by 2014.A study by Age UK shows that the average household with someone over 75 will lose £2,200 worth of public services a year by 2014, which represents about 14% of their household income. Even worse the poorest of the over-75s will lose a third of their income. The findings, said the charity, show that old people will suffer t....