UNISONScotland BRIEFING ON AGENDA FOR CHANGE

MEETING WITH SCOTTISH HEALTH MINISTER
MONDAY 14 JUNE 2004

INTRODUCTION

UNISON is fully committed to the principles of Agenda for Change as shown by its involvement in the planning and negotiation of the whole scheme. However, as currently constituted it is totally unacceptable to our members as it will result in heavy financial losses to a large section of our membership. We also believe that certain aspects of it will bring severe difficulties to the delivery of health services across the country.

POINTS OF CONCERN

At a Recall Conference on 16 April, UNISONScotland identified the following points which were causing concern to its members:

• Unsocial Hours and On-call payments
• Protection
• Job Evaluation Scheme
• Job Profiles
• Service Provision
• Capacity
• Financial Envelope
• Pensions
• Consultation/Communications

PAPER EXERCISE AND EARLY IMPLEMENTER SITES

SCOTLAND

West Lothian site

Latest figures show that the numbers that would require protection if the terms and conditions for Agenda for Change were applied directly, and the "high" percentage which shows the numbers that would still require protection after any local adjustments had been applied, are as follows:

• Ancillary 49.79% , high 25.3%
• Administrative and clerical 44.91% , high 28.8%
• Estates and maintenance 55.76% , high 28.84%
• Nursing and midwifery 29.11% , high 12.63%
• Allied Health Professionals 25.84%, high 21%

The reasons for the large percentage of staff requiring protection are:

Ancillary staff - Basic pay does not increase sufficiently to compensate for reduction in percentage decreases in unsocial hours. The reduction in on- call payments is of biggest concern for staff who work week ends only.

Administrative and clerical - On evaluation a large number of posts match to a post at a lower basic pay. There are also issues in regard to unsocial hours pay.

Estates - One problem is a reduction in basic pay for supervisory posts. However along with ancillary staff, the unsocial hours and on call provision is the main reason for protection

Nursing and midwifery - there is a basic pay increase for the majority of staff, but where individuals work the majority of their shifts in unsocial hours there is a reduction in their total take home pay. The negative impact is reached when staff work 28 or more hours unsocial hours.

Allied health professions - The majority of staff do increase their basic pay. However, some lose out when they work ad hoc public holidays. Some staff groups in this category do have reductions in pay, for example, qualified psychologists, senior 2 in OT, radiographer [on call], and certain grades of speech therapists.

CSA Site

Early indications are that the number of staff requiring protection following the introduction of Agenda for Change would range from 30 - 60 percent.

ENGLAND

North East Ambulance Site:

The unions have undertaken an indicative ballot on industrial action as a result of the failure to reach agreement on meal breaks and the branch are now moving into an industrial action ballot. Two areas of work remain outstanding, which will hopefully be resolved over the next two - three weeks: rotas/hours and annual leave for hours owed. There has been positive feedback on implementation of IT access for all staff and a number of computers have been installed in each station.

Guy's & St Thomas Site:

Significant problems with protection reported in both London EI sites with both indicating potential figures exceeding 30%. The main problem area appears to be London Weighting and unsocial hours statistics which although high are consistent with other sites. The site also indicated that some problems were being experienced with the computer system. The Trust is still working to an end of July completion date, but the TUs do not feel that this is achievable.

South West London Site:

50% of staff assimilated onto A4C pay rates (2800 WTE approx). KSF is also slow in this site, with only one area working well. Unsocial hours and London Weighting is again proving problematic, especially amongst night staff. The site are also looking at recruitment and retention premia especially for A&C staff, although have held off making any final decisions until outcomes on some of the national work on A&C posts. Protection currently appears to be predicted at 20%.

Hereford Site:

900 of 1100 staff are now being paid on A4C rates, with 300 outstanding. A further 80 staff will have their details finalised and be paid in the May pay run. 60 appeals have been lodged and a series of surgeries have been arranged/taking pace up to the end of July to start this process. The site hopes to achieve a end of June completion although again staff side uncertain. Current protection forecast for the site is 7.5%

West Kent Site:

1433 staff currently paid on A4C rates of pay (63% of workforce) 104 staff currently require protection (82 nurses, 22 support staff) The main factor for this is unsocial hours, however there was an early problem in managers correctly calculating the hours.

Avon & Wiltshire Site:

1600 staff are currently paid on A4C rates (nursing). 40 have to date requested reviews, primarily CPN's, possibly due to the lack of Mental Health family job profiles. The trust has tabled proposals on unsocial hours payments for less than 5 hours, which is currently being considered, although they feel that there needs to be a national settlement on this issue. A recruitment and retention policy has been agreed in the site.

Cheshire:

The issue of a review of the A&C posts was raised. An increase in the basic pay of ancillary staff (domestic) is having a positive impact on staff and unsocial hours figures.

ISSUES TO BE ADDRESSED

(i) Unsocial Hours

2. Protection

Organisational Change with lifetime protection, with no mark time, would be the optimum protection needed to ensure that nobody loses financially.

UNISON reaffirms its commitment to the Organisational Change scheme currently in place across Scotland which should be applied to Agenda for Change.

3. Job Evaluation

The whole process was felt to be flawed, especially the non-clinical profiles, where these existed. The profiles did not seem to reflect the reality of jobs and a great number of jobs did not match to one of the profiles at all. Much more work needed to be done on job descriptions, which were felt to be outdated. The scheme was believed to be clinically driven, with neither A&C and Ancillary skills taken into account nor their qualification quoted. A&C and Ancillary staff deal with other people in the service, not just patients and this factor should be recognised. The quality of evaluation panels was also questioned, with people feeling low bands were given for what was perceived as "lowly" clerical and ancillary tasks. Staff need to be given guidance on filling in the job evaluation sheets, so they could learn not to undersell themselves or their jobs.

UNISON believes this issue must be revisited nationally.

 

 

 

4. Service Provision

UNISON has major concerns at the ability of the NHS to maintain delivery of core services. The implementation of the annual leave improvements would, we estimate, require an additional 40 staff for an average sized hospital to accommodate this. There was also concern that the service would not be able to be maintained, as people would not work unsocial hours, if they were not gaining additional remuneration for doing so.

UNISON believes this issue must be addressed

5. Capacity

Work in the Early Implementer sites has not yet been able to be fully completed. This gives cause for concern that there is not the capacity in the service to implement the new system in the time allowed and with the resources so far allocated.

UNISON believes this issue must also be addressed.

6. Financial Envelope

The Financial Envelope that is needed to implement Agenda for Change has to be clarified. Does the 5.5% increase include this year's pay rise of 3.3%? If so, does this mean there is less than 2.2% to implement this new scheme and has this money been identified and ring-fenced?

UNISON believes this is a major issue and must be addressed

7. Pensions

Discussions are currently ongoing on new pension arrangements, however, it is feared that given the age profile of the workforce, having a large proportion of the workforce sitting on protection and mark-time arrangements would be seriously detrimental to their pension arrangements.

UNISON believes this must be taken into account in the discussions around Protections

8. Consultation/Communications

CONCLUSION

Pay Modernisation is central to the Government's strategy for the National Health Service. The Pay Modernisation "stool" has three legs - the Consultants' Contract, the GMS Contract and Agenda for Change. It would be hard to accept Government Ministers' often repeated words about now much they value all NHS staff, if the only agreement that needed to build in protection, was Agenda for Change

UNISON Scotland is fully supportive of Agenda for Change. However the proposals as they stand are not acceptable to our members. We fervently believe that the current Agenda for Change proposals will adversely affect delivery of high quality services to patients and will have a detrimental effect on the pay and conditions of too many of our members.