E3 is this to become the line in the sand?

I am seriously squeezed for time at this late hour of the week (and not feeling 100%) so will have to use Monday's long journey to Exeter on route to see members in South Western Branch to fill in some detail on the other hot topics that have emerged.

 

Key consideration for us all this last few days, with the publication of the E3 blueprint, has to be: just how further can our members be pushed given the disasters of TR, the relentless austerity agenda, the move to unintelligible and rigid Civil Service HR policies and the continuing problems that members face by way of massive workloads and operational chaos in many parts of the NPS?

 

For on the back of all this comes the latest potential assault on professional standards, grade boundaries and ultimately terms and conditions, in the shape of the generic E3 job descriptions for the NPS.

 

Old responses no longer available 

 

Ordinarily, in days long gone, we could have told NOMS via the NNC and the probable support of the employers on the Probation Association (oh halcyon days) that heaping a massive grading exercise on members who are reporting that they are close to meltdown after the most despicable piece of political chicanery (TR to the casual reader) would be well, a not very good idea to say the least.

 

Times are sadly much different now, and in the absence of a hard hitting campaign of industrial action by the probation unions, then engagement has to be the initial response.

 

That ought not to be mistaken for acquiescence, or that we have ruled out asking that question at some stage given the potential threats posed by the various plans that have been previewed in the E3 blueprint, especially as we are already receiving a lot of traffic which suggests that many members are outraged at what they see as generic job descriptions that bear no reality to real life and, moreover, offer future detriment rather than reward.

 

For us it will be about trying to shape the engagement strategy in a way that will help make some sense out of the shambles that Grayling heaped on you and use this to try and achieve our aspirations on pay and much else besides.

 

Make no mistake, the E3 project will stretch our resources at Chivalry Road and whilst we will have no problem standing up to the employer, as members expect us to do, we cannot deliver it all from the centre.

 

That is why we have a healthy number of practitioner members who have volunteered to take part in the E3 work streams and those who have come forward to become fully trained job evaluators.

 

They will bring considerable expertise to their role, which is not to represent members but represent their interests (hence the project time that they will be granted and credit where it is due to NOMS on that score). Their work will supplement our efforts around the negotiating table. 

 

Together we are stonger; but you know that already.

 

Good weekend