Dear Member,
I recently wrote to HR Director Graham White requesting that the City Council consider two points.
Firstly that they enhance the payments made under the Voluntary Redundancy Policy. UNISONs stance is always to minimise compulsory redundancies and making the VR payments more attractive would encourage more staff to come forward and apply for it thereby minimising the amount of staff made to leave the Council.
Secondly I asked the City Council to consider that in cases where staff are unsuccessful at interview that rather than pay redundancy costs the Council should commit to retraining staff in order to keep them in employ.
Below is the response of the Strategic Executive Board (SEB) via Graham White.
Stephen
You wrote to me recently and asked me to seek a response from the Strategic Executive Board on the following matters
1. Consideration to enhance the voluntary Redundancy payments.
2. Seek assurances regarding the development of staff as an effective solution to redundancy.
I can now formally confirm the position of SEB
Enhancement of the voluntary Severance Payments.
SEB discussed this at length and recognised the rational of the proposal. During the discussions a number of scenarios were investigated to consider the benefits of such an approach. It was clearly evident that Unisons suggestion that this would reduce the number of compulsory redundancies was credible and had valid. However when considered holistically it could not be guaranteed that all redundancies would be voluntary and as such an outcome that gave some redundant staff more than others was seen as both unfair and not reflective of the values of the organisation.
SEB asked me to acknowledge the proposal and to recognise the positive nature in which it was presented. They also asked me to assure you they will continue to consider suggestions and proposals for you to support staff during this period and later when staff are identified as redundant.
Staff Development as an alternative to Redundancy
SEB thanked you for this very positive and practical suggestion and wished me to assure you that they agree with your suggestion and have instructed HR to ensure that all vulnerable and ultimately redundant staff are assessed against all vacant posts taking account of the logic of your recommendation that if we are spending public money it will be better spent retraining staff than making them redundant.
This was seen by SEB as a very positive sign that Unison are fully engaging in the process of keeping redundancies to a minimum and wished me to commend you for your genuine in involvement and contribution to the consultation process.
Regards
grahamW
UNISON is obviously disappointed that there has been no improvement to the Voluntary Redundancy Policy and will continue to campaign on this issue. However the commitment to retrain staff is not an insignificant one and could mean that staff who would have otherwise been made redundant will remain in employment.
I am interested in hearing from members on these two issues. Feel free to email your views.
Regards
Stephen Higgins
Branch Secretary
