SODEXO - you are wrong!

 

At the time of writing we are preparing for a major meeting with Sodexo bosses on Monday morning and I aim to issue a detailed report thereafter.

 

It 's never a good idea to flag up your tactics in advance, but suffice to say we drew considerable encouragement from the response by the employers side yesterday over the vexing issue of whether Sodexo's statement to the staff within South Yorkshire CRC about not intending to pay people Enhanced Voluntary Redundancy was bang out of order.

 

Anyway we registered an NNC dispute about that and left the possibility of a National NNC dispute on the table for now.

 

Meanwhile, the letter below (shortened for space) to Ursula Brennan and the Napo press release (on the website) sum up the issues we have been prosecuting on behalf of members across the 6 CRc's involved but, if the truth be told, everyone else working in tne outsourced environment.

 

Tories damned by faint praise?

 

Social media aficionados have been quick to leap on to the trail about Labours promises in the Crime and Justice hustings during the election campaign so I thought I would set the record straight about our involvement.

 

Napo does not make or write Labour Party policy but the leadership group here firmly believe that we stand a better chance of bringing about    a resuscitation of the Probation service than we do with any other administration.

 

Anyway, you will take your choice about who you want to vote for of course. it might be asking a bit much, but you might want to hold your nose and have a look at the utterances of Cameron's bunch and their sickeningly patronising comments about how 'brilliant' Probation Officers are.

 

You certainly are, but no thanks to the Tories.

 

 

Ursula Brennan

Permanent Secretary

Ministry of Justice

 

 

 

17 April 2015 

 

 

Dear Ursula

 

Proposals for Staff Redundancies in Sodexo owned CRCs

 

As discussed with you at yesterday’s meeting with the MOJ trade unions, Sodexo is proposing very drastic job cuts in order to deliver on its proposed operating model in the 6 CRCs under in its ownership. 

 

According to the information which has been made available to the three probation trade unions, each of the Sodexo CRCs is proposing the following job cuts:

 

BeNCH: 132 job cuts 34% staffing cut

Cumbria/Lancs: 123 job cuts 35% staffing cut

Essex: 100 job cuts 35% staffing cut

Norfolk/Suffolk:  89 job cuts 46% staffing cut

Northumbria:  80 job cuts 40% staffing cut

South Yorkshire:  58 job cuts 25% staffing cut

 

 

We are writing to you in relation to these proposals for three reasons:

 

Firstly, we would be grateful if you could confirm whether the above Sodexo staffing proposals have already been agreed by the Justice Secretary, by virtue of their being included in the Sodexo bid to run community rehabilitation, or whether Sodexo has sought the approval of the Secretary of State, as special share-holder, to the above staffing reductions since the contracts for its 6 CRCs was signed? Our expectation is that the latter must be the case, as Sodexo could not have anticipated this level of redundancies, nor the Secretary of State approved them, prior to Sodexo getting full access to the NOMS data room following share sale in February this year.

 

Secondly, during this purdah period, we make a direct appeal to you to instruct Sodexo, on behalf of the Secretary of State as the CRCs’ special shareholder, to put a halt to the company’s plans to make these staffing cuts until the matters set out above have been properly resolved and our members, and the communities they serve, can be reassured that the Sodexo plans have been properly scrutinised by NOMS as the contract holder, both from a staffing and a public safety point of view. You were unable to confirm this at yesterday’s meeting.

 

Thirdly, we would like you to confirm that the Services Agreement signed between Sodexo and the Justice Secretary earlier this year requires the company to abide by the terms of the National Negotiating Council (NNC) enhanced voluntary redundancy scheme (EVR) in the event that Sodexo proceeds with any proposed voluntary redundancies. The relevant extract from the Services Agreement is provided below for ease of reference. We make the obvious point that it is not the job of the trade unions, which are not party to the Services Agreement, to seek to enforce its terms. That is very clearly the job of the Ministry of Justice and we expect you to honour the terms of the Services Agreement in relation to redundancy protections which were agreed in good faith between us, your officials, and the then Probation Minister Jeremy Wright. 

 

Naturally, we are totally opposed these job cuts, both in respect of the job security of our members and the operational capability of the Sodexo CRCs going forward. We are due to discuss these very serious matters with Sodexo on Monday 20 April and had hoped that an earlier letter to Michael Spurr, dated 2 April, would have elicted the necessary reassurances in respect of the above, but unfortunately we have yet to see Michael’s response to this request, which is regrettable. As we confirmed to you at yesterday’s meeting, our members face the prospect of being forced to make decisions about their future employment with Sodexo early next week, and we find ourselves in the very difficult position of not being able to reassure them that NOMS is taking its responsibilities as contract holder in respect of the issues set out above seriously. We expect you to act swiftly to rectify this in the absence of any Ministers being able to do so during purdah. 

 

In response to statements from the CRCs, owned by Sodexo, to the contrary, we seek your confirmation that the NNC enhanced voluntary redundancy scheme applies to any voluntary redundancies offered by Sodexo CRCs for the lifetime of the Sodexo CRC contracts.

 

Both the NNC Staff Transfer and Protections Agreement, and the Services Agreement between Sodexo and the MOJ, require the CRCs to observe the terms of the NNC enhanced voluntary redundancy scheme in respect of any voluntary redundancies which the CRCs intend to make for the entire duration of their contracts. These requirements are now critical in respect of the Sodexo proposals to drastically cut staffing in its 6 CRCs.

The following extracts from the respective documents referred to above are relevant:

NNC Staff Transfer and Protections Agreement

CRC and NPS Terms and Conditions

16. In addition, the commercial contracts will specify that, other than where more beneficial terms exist, where voluntary redundancy is offered, the enhanced terms set out in Appendix B should apply to any member of staff in a CRC employed by a Probation Trust on 31 May 2014.

 

Services Agreement

 

1.3 Employee Protections

 

 (d) The Contractor acknowledges that since the Employee Transfer Date, the voluntary redundancy terms (the Voluntary Redundancy Terms) set out in Appendix B to the National Agreement on Staff Transfer and Protections dated 29 January 2014 (the National Agreement) a copy of which is contained in Part 2 of Schedule 25 to this Agreement have been applied in all cases of voluntary redundancy of Employees (save where more beneficial terms exist)

 

(e) The Contractor shall be entitled to effect voluntary redundancies of Employees from the Employee Transfer Date in accordance with Applicable Law. Other than where more beneficial terms exist, in all cases of voluntary redundancy of Employees the Contractor shall give effect to the Voluntary Redundancy Terms, unless agreed between the Contractor and the Employee

 

A copy of the NNC Enhanced Voluntary Redundancy Policy is attached to this letter for ease of access. 

We would be grateful if you could confirm by no later than 5pm on Monday 20 April, on behalf of the Secretary of State as the client for the 6 Sodexo CRC contracts, that:

each of the Sodexo CRCs must comply with the requirements of the Services Agreement in relation to the NNC EVR scheme, and 

what action you deem appropriate in relation to the requirement of Sodexo to seek the approval of the MOJ as special shareholder to the drastic and dangerous job cuts it is proposing in its 6 CRCs. 

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

 

Ian Lawrence Ben Priestley David Walton

General Secretary National Officer National Secretary

Napo UNISON GMB/SCOOP