Once again I'm disappointed that I need to write to you on behalf of UNISON members to express my dismay and anger at recent events within the City Council.
Performance Management
One of the fundamental areas of the employer/employee relationship is that of performance. Here at the City Council performance is encouraged via the Step up programme, a central tenet of which is that with clearly defined objectives employees know what is required of them in order to be recommended for an extra step.
It has now become clear that arbitrary levels are being set across the organisation by the Strategic Executive Board as to how many employees will be awarded a step within each department. It is my understanding that some departments have been told they can have 1 member of staff step up per hundred! Take this fact together with the news that some staff have been told by their managers that nobody would be stepping up this year due to financial pressures. In some instances this led to members not participating in the process and others being rejected for a step by manager at a local level for financial reasons.
This is unacceptable and a downright abuse of the performance management process. The whole thing is now tainted to such a degree that the only way to restore confidence in it would be to run the entire exercise again, allowing staff to reapply for a step up and having their work objectively judged by the SEB (or better yet an impartial 3rd party) against criteria laid down in the Performance Management Framework and nothing else.
Members can't help but feel as though they have in some way been fooled into thinking that if they take part (and exceed) in the programme they will be put forward for and stand a reasonable chance of receiving an award.
In a way it is very similar to how members feel about sabbatical leave. They were told when they joined the council that all they had to do was to stay loyal for 7 years and they would be eligible for paid sabbatical leave. That promise (much like this one) was broken and members understandably now feel a lack of trust towards their employer and this latest perversion of the performance management process does nothing to alleviate that.
UNISON members accept that a step up every year is not guaranteed under this new performance management system. But members will not accept the performance management process being subverted from its true purpose and being used as a tool to artificially keep pay low, especially when this aim has not been communicated to them at the start of the performance year.
The fact is also not lost on members that any increase in step will also mean an increase in any redundancy payment due.
To use the Step Up programme in this way is to make a mockery of the hard work and effort that has been put in by UNISON members over the last year, particularly as by its very nature the programme requires staff to work beyond the level of their job description in order to be even recommended for an award!
I am also aware that very senior managers are not managed under the step up programme and instead have some kind of salary sacrifice scheme in place. Will members be told how many of these managers have received awards this year? I think all staff would like to be reassured that the belt tightening is going on at all levels of this organisation.
Phase 4 of Cuts & Fundamental Service Reviews
As we have now begun consultation over Phase 4 of the cuts (with rife rumours of phases 5 and 6 to come). We do not as Trade Union members accept that we are now somehow supposed to face phases and phases of cuts with wave after wave of redundancies being handed down from the 18th Floor.
The current decimation of Westminster City Council cannot continue at this pace without before long there being a hugely negative impact on both the services we provide and the reputation we are so rightly proud of.
UNISON members have so far worked through all of the proposed changes even when it meant seeing their excellent colleagues dismissed at a time when jobs in the public sector are scarce. It has been a traumatic and disturbing time for a lot of members and we are all now beginning to ask ‘when will it end?'
The time has come to be completely open with staff about the road that lies ahead and how deep further cuts will be.
I understand that managers are currently carrying out ‘Fundamental Service Reviews' the results of which can lead to wide spread reduction in services.
One of the questions managers are being asked to consider is ‘Does the activity provide substantial economic value?' This seems to signal a shift towards the private sector paradigm of ‘If it doesn't make dollars, it doesn't make cents'.
But the provision of excellent service to our residents, businesses and visitors does not always mean the provision of profitable services.
We do not accept that there is a real case for the depth of cuts which seems to be being planned for. Instead the City Council appears to be taking advantage of the cover provided by an economic crisis to forward their ideology of fewer services, a smaller workforce and far more private contractors on less favourable terms and conditions to their directly employed colleagues.
The discussions taking place around the above Reviews should and must be shared with UNISON at the earliest possible opportunity. A review of this gravity cannot be merely included in a cabinet report and dropped into the Branch office a week ahead of the decision being made!
UNISON members have been very patient to date and have worked incredibly hard to keep the level of services up in the face of slashing cuts. However that reservoir of patience and hard work is not limitless.
Kind Regards
Stephen Higgins
Branch Secretary
Westminster UNISON
