Advice on TR related work In many Trusts members are now being asked to undertake additional work in advance of the split, for example to prepare their cases for transfer. These tasks can involve significant amounts of additional work. Remember we are already taking industrial action short of strike action which involves only working our contracted hours. So, if additional TR related work is demanded of you: Step 1 Write to your line manager and ask for written confirmation that you are being instructed to do this work. Step 2 If you are instructed , then ask for clear guidance about what work you can leave undone if you cannot accommodate the additional tasks within your contracted hours. If your workload is already excessive remind the manager of this fact. This is especially important if it is suggested that the work you are being asked to do is routine work that you would in any case be expected to complete. Ask for your workload to be reviewed. Here is some suggested wording: Step 1 "I have recently been asked to complete the following tasks..............Can you confirm in writing that I am being instructed to complete this work" Step 2 "You have confirmed that I am being instructed to complete the following tasks. ...........This will involve additional work. As you know I am taking industrial action short of strike action which means I am not able to work over my contracted hours. Please can you advise me as to how I should prioritise my work and what tasks I can leave undone in order to accommodate the additional work" "You will be aware that my caseload is already excessive as defined by our measurement tool (where applicable). I am therefore not able to complete all of my tasks. I would like to meet with you so that you can review my workload and advise me on what I should prioritise and what tasks can remain undone" Step 4 If demands are made upon you which are causing undue stress, fill out an accident and incident form and ask for a stress risk assessment. The employers are obliged to do this and it will help to protect you. Please note that we are looking carefully at what TR related tasks may form part of Action Short of Strike Action. However, we must ensure that any such action is legally watertight and not leave members at any risk of disciplinary action. There will be further information on this by next week. Thanks to Megan Elliot, National Vice Chair, who drafted the above. TOM RENDON IAN LAWRENCE National Chair General Secretary |
Thursday, 20 March 2014
Latest From Napo 20
Blimey they're getting the hang of this down at Napo HQ! Two emails to all members on one day. Here's the second:-
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This is better, remember we are at the start of a long process they will not stop cutting and making efficiency saving and most of our management will doff their cap and stick it to us.
ReplyDeletePapa
As a manager I'm not sticking it to anybody but contractual obligation means just that, obligation to manage under instructions.
DeleteEven if the instructions are maddeningly stupid and put victims/people at risk. Following instructions can only get you so far.
DeleteThis is a poll tax moment for the government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
DeleteYeah, that defence worked well on the past!
Think much of this work has been done already...
ReplyDeleteI am a manager and do not make any excuses under this hat. Let us all recognise at last NAPO must be reading this blog and have woken up to help staff understand what is within their authority to reject and accept or displace. That the workloads and employee care agreements now have a real life again and need to be spelled out. Anyone of us needs to decide to just not assist anything to do with terminating our roles by way of helping along the TR deception. No Pun in the initials and the NAPO Chair or the application to be an ACO in a CRC no pun at all. We need to give staff confidence and ensure branches are able to protect each other from threats down the line. I wonder how this might be assured . Perhaps I can apply for a senior management role and start there. That way I could be flexible and realise that I can only enforce existing contracts of employment, not believe the idea this is an obligation. It is the changing of our job description which is effectively a variation of contract as yet none of us have seen the revised new job descriptions. So we do not have to do anything outside of that. Would you jump of a bridge under instruction?
ReplyDeleteOrders are Orders ????? Well actually when they conflict with the health and safety of the workforce there are steps that should be taken. Please investigate the stress tool and USE IT. Staff and managers are stressed so each of us should complete this document and give it to our line managers/ employer...after all, if we know we are stressed and our well-being is affected by the workplace it is incumbent upon each of us to allow our employer to fulfil their obligations to us by notifying them formally of this. I am sure a reasonable employer would take steps to alleviate the problem...... I suggest if you cannot find this document you contact NAPO for a copy of it. Look, colleagues there are ways and means let us all start to be a bit smarter now.....
ReplyDeleteLink to account of PAC hearing with Romeo, Brennan, Spurr etc -
ReplyDeletehttp://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/WrittenEvidence.svc/EvidenceHtml/7395
Please do take some time to read even some of the PAC minutes, they are truly astonishing in the vein of Rumsfeldt's "unknown unknowns". Dame Ursula Brennan saying that what she's saying is what she's not saying, but its what she's saying; or the claims that savings aren't savings, but they are savings from elsewhere, perhaps, but we won't know until the savings have been made.
DeleteIt truly is 'Yes Minister" made flesh. Or the nonsensical chuntering of Count Arthur Strong.
I just read this excerpt:
DeleteDame Ursula Brennan: "It is worth bearing in mind, when you look at that under-12-month case load, that there is no requirement to do the kind of intensive service that you do with the other case load that applies to those people."
HaHa. If bidders think that they will be totally screwed. Those of us in Probation know how time consuming and resource sapping that group will be. After a few months of working with people with short prison sentence plus twelve months supervision they will want to pull up the draw bridge pretty quickly. In our area we spend c£150,000 from out Trust budget voluntarily for through the gate provision for u12 month sentences - they only draw on a small number of prisoners who volunteer into the service. The workers are so stretched by these people that their caseloads are half of those of workers dealing with Community Orders. And that is working with the more motivated end of the u12 months group. Imagine - zero motivated u12 mothers who are saddled with 12 months supervision when they get out. That's a saddle that this group very easily shed, but CRCs will have to run after them trying to get them recalled. Best of luck to them.....but luck will be no help whatsoever. They will be utterly f**ked and hugely out of pocket. What is more, the processes for managing this group on mandatory supervision have not even been considered yet. Remember, it is 'through the gate' - it is quite different - no offender supervisors - CRC workers will be doing it themselves, with no worked out processes. This is the group who put bricks through windows just to get back inside for a few nights of warmth and a meal. The best a CRC worker can do is signpost them to a food bank.
Then there is the overcrowding in prisons that will arise and the huge disruption to prison reception processes caused by the increase in these sentences as against community orders - to a JP, 3 months custody with12 months supervision will sound better than 12 months Community Order. The costs of that will be massive!!!
My advice to bidders is that if you don't know this client group....get out now.
and what is more, as a PSR writer in the NPS, it is going to be hard to get suspended sentences in the future. Short prison sentences will be the way forward, especially as the NPS won't be managing them.
DeleteFirstly let me say I am not in NAPO, so have no axe to grind one way or the other. I have commented previously that I did not think members had the stomach for another strike . . .my most recent observations lead me to think that enthusiasm for direct action has waned. In my LDU it is very much 'business as usual', additional work is absorbed readily just the same as covering for sick colleagues. Yes we moan to each other about it, but we still do it. We seem to get around the need for 'sessional work' by re - employing (on temp short term contracts) ex PO's who recently took early retirement !. Nobody bats an eyelid, they are just welcomed back into the fold like they never left. Strike action will not "secure delays" although I am still hopefull that the sheer ineptitude of those forcing TR through at break - neck speed will delay matters. My real concern is that a lacklustre day and a half of action will actually do far more harm than good. Why can't area NAPO reps simply phone individual members and pose the very simple question "will you be out at the end of the month or not ?". It isn't too late for damage limitation.. . just remember a poor turnout, as well as empowering Grayling, may well demotivate non - striking NAPO colleagues and Unison members.
ReplyDeleteI am a NAPO member and want to support the strike. However I am approaching retirement, have been assigned to the CRC (despite being a frontline manager for 14 years) and have been informed by HR that a strike of a day and a half will break my continuity in terms of my pension. If that is the case I might as well resign now. Our branch chair has sought advice form NAPO HQ because there are a few of us in this situation. No response so far. Does anyone else have some insights on this?
ReplyDeleteThe simplest way for any 'non striking NAPO members' not to become demotivated is for them to show some solidarity to the cause and instead come out on strike. And for our UNISON colleagues to be badgering their Reps for answers as to why UNISON aren't supporting NAPO and the Justice Alliance on the 1st.
ReplyDeleteDeb
Impact of strike action on pensionable pay. This links to a Unison factsheet. The impact is extremely small and for HR to use the language of continuity is rather dramatic given the overall impact of a day's lost pay.
Deletehttp://swamb.com/graphics/cms/PensionsStrikeFactsheet.pdf
That information sheet from Unison is helpfully informative but may not deal with the threat reported my Anon at 08.00 whp seems to have (correctly) inferred that continuity of employment would be lost by taking a day's strike. I suspect that technically that may in fact be the case as the contractural (I have not checked) requirements to satisfy "continuity" is that there are no breaks in employment, however, were that true, all in the LGPS who have ever. broken their continuity ny striking would lose continuity, but that has not in fact happened. For an employer to threaten it, suggests bullying and I wonder if a Grievance complaint would be justified.
DeleteAnon 08:00 your HR have only told you half of info . yes strike breaks pension continuity but you can still opt to pay your pension contributions thus ensuring no break in continuity. Your local Branch should already know this if anyone had taken strike action before:there'll be a standard form that you'd be asked to sign
ReplyDelete