Wednesday June 15, 2011 at 9:40pm
So we know that up to 750,000 public sector workers will hold a co-ordinated strike later this month after members of a third major union backed industrial action. The PCS said its 290,000 members had to defend themselves against "attacks" on their pensions by the government. But ministers called it "irresponsible" and said the 32.4% turnout showed the strike had "extremely limited support". The civil servants will walk out on 30 June - the same days as hundreds of ....
Saturday February 26, 2011 at 7:59am
I read that the Government has so far paid more than £20 million in one-off redundancy payments as part of the "bonfire of the quangos", figures have revealed. The statistics, obtained by the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act, showed there have been almost 1,000 redundancies from 29 of the 481 public bodies being wound down in cost cutting measures. One employee from The Crown Prosecution Service was paid £200,000, according to the data. I wonder how much negotiation....
Friday February 18, 2011 at 7:31am
The recent announcement from Eric Pickles that he would amend the Decentralisation and Localism Bill,to require a full council debate whenever an authority plans to hire a new employee on a salary of £100,000 or more has certainly got some attention. He recently said: ‘Local government jobs will now have to be “democracy-proofed” before mega salaries are paid out. Councils need to make sure they don’t sully their reputation by taking decisions behind closed doors to....
Wednesday February 16, 2011 at 11:33am
With news on more redundancies within the public sector, eagle eyed employees will be wise to focus on the selection pool for determining if the redundancy is fair or not.
Legally, the group from which employees will be selected for redundancy (the selection pool) must be carefully identified. It will usually consist of those who undertake a similar type of work in a particular department, who work at a relevant location, or whose work has ceased or diminished or is expected to do so. Obj....
Friday February 11, 2011 at 3:44pm
Today it was announced that the government has been defeated in the High Court over the way it scrapped part of England's school building programme. The education secretary's decision to axe Buildings Schools for the Future (BSF) projects in six local authority areas was ruled unlawful as he failed to consult on it. A judge ordered Education Secretary Michael Gove to reconsider the move. The government said it had won the case on the substantive points. Mr Justice Holman, sitting in London, allo....
Thursday December 16, 2010 at 9:15pm
The Guardian reports today that 100,000 public sector workers face the prospect of losing jobs by spring with a series of warning letters of redundancy to be issued by the end of the year.
This is bound to lead to some form of litigation which will hurt the taxpayer, the employer and the employee.
The question can this pain be mitigated, and is it worthwhile?
It must be worthwhile on financial terms if the result of the redundancy is litigation is a Tribunal Claim, a Tribunal claim which may ....
Wednesday November 17, 2010 at 11:16am
I read that local authorities are warning the government that its own rules mean some councils will struggle to pay for the redundancies that spending cuts are forcing them to make. England’s town halls face about 100,000 job losses following the government’s announcement in last month’s comprehensive spending review that its revenue funding to English councils will be cut by 26 per cent in real terms over the next four years. The Local Government Association, estimates that th....
Tuesday November 9, 2010 at 1:04pm
A very good post over on the Guardian blog shows some of the employment problems of the public sector. "Is it too difficult to discipline staff in the public sector, as a BBC investigation claimed earlier this week? A former NHS chief executive interviewed on Radio 4's Sack 'Em programme reinforced a widely-held view that public servants are rarely fired: Gary Walker, a former hospital chief executive, told us that moving people sideways instead of sacking them is incredibly common. He clai....
Thursday November 4, 2010 at 8:13am
A survey of public sector leaders to be published on Monday from Zurich Municipal illustrates the potential legal costs that may ensue from the huge cost-cutting exercise now under way across the whole public sector.
The issues are as shown in the Guardian as follows:If you spend less money on highways maintenance? Expect more complaints and demands for compensation from people tripping over oles in pavements.
If you need to reduce staffing numbers? Expect more unfair dismissal cla....
Wednesday November 3, 2010 at 9:36am
An excellent report on Channel 4 which highlights the problem of both sickness and redundancy costs within the public sector.
Here are some of the key extracts."Many of them point to genuine sickness problems – though why the bad weather in Aberdeen and North Wales should affect workers there disproportionately compared to the rest of us (who by the way also had to endure a pretty miserable winter last year) is unclear. It's a reason for some absence, for sure, but for such high numb....
Wednesday November 3, 2010 at 8:17am
According to Local Government News, eight Scottish councils have identified savings of up to £70m through sharing services including waste management and health and social care.
The Clyde Valley Community Planning Partnership (CVCPP) project would see the participating councils prioritise shared services in four areas. Business cases are being prepared to find savings of between 10-20% of existing expenditure, totalling up to £70m over the next five years. The eight councils &ndash....
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....
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....
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 ....
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....