A WEEK IN POLITICS ...

Whether or not he is around in five years to fight the 2020 election or is destined to join the ranks of the failed and forgotten before then, its the here and now that is surely important. He and John McDonald have loyally stuck by Napo members at our time of need and thats why I felt comfortable endorsing the statement issued by the Trade Union Co-Ordinating Group today. 

 

http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=43e87993515091dcbf1a89557&id=e61277a...

 

Is the bidding war on pay underway?

 

Meanwhile, back to some troublesome issues closer to home, and hot from my return from Brighton came a visit to a recruitment agency suppliers day in Newbold Revel where Mike McClelland and I heard news about a planned initiative by MoJ/NOMS which brought the acute shortages of staff across some NPS divisions into stark focus.

 

While we await news about the review of the proposed community justice review ordered last week by Gove, its clear that urgent solutions need to be found. Even with new cohorts hopefully starting next year, a ramping up of agency recruitment to fill the NPS gaps is no more than a sticking plaster over some gaping wounds.

 

This must surely mean that the Government are going to have to do something soon about probation pay. They could start by instructing NOMS to issue an early invitation to the unions for meaningful negotiations and think about treating probation pay as a special case, so as to reward the staff who have tried to steer a path through the post TR rubble. This would ensure that when, or if, some CRC's try to do something about their own recruitment difficulties and up the ante on pay and reward, the NPS is not left up the Orinoco without a paddle. Either way, we intend to be in at the sharp end if these potential developments take place and I am happy to say to all employers out there that Napo is open and ready for business.

 

On the recruitment angle, we will will keep a careful eye on the situation and intend to explore how we might be able to assist our members who for example, might be approaching retirement or looking to change their personal circumstances and want to get the best possible arrangements, but its too early to say anything more definitive than that at this stage.

 

SSCL performance gets thumbs down from staff

 

We have now had an opportunity to review the outcome of the recent staff survey asking people to have their say about the service (or otherwise) provided by the Shared Services Division (SSCL).

 

Its contains no big surprises, and in short illustrates that of those Managers who were able to find time to respond,  over 90% of them don't understand the processes and do not feel sufficiently informed to advise staff about them.

 

The overall views of staff indicate that about 50% either cannot navigate the systems or aren't sure about them. 57% hardly use HR advice on OMNI, My Services and Phoenix. Reasons given are that they are difficult to find, difficult to follow and often out of date or irrelevant.

 

70% reported expenses as a difficult process (we would guess that figure has dramatically increased of late). 35% reported HR processes as very difficult (we estimate that this figure is about representative of the percentage of staff who are using the HR processes at any one time). 

 

Again, and much as we anticipated, 31% reported pay queries as problematical, and in general staff feel that they have little support. The overall rating for the My Services application was 2.3 out of 5 with staff saying that they would prefer face to face training and briefings rather than more emails.

 

400 out of the 696 respondents had a problem with shared services, 20% of these made a complaint and 30% didn't know how to complain. Of those that did complain, very few were satisfied at the outcome which may be why some staff who didn't complain said it was because they had little confidence it would actually be dealt with.

 

A gloomy prognosis, but there are steps that you can take to help change things. Firstly, if you have asked Chivalry Road for assistance and the issue has subsequently been resolved, then please notify us so that we can close our files. Once it has been resolved by SSL then please use the complaint procedure to register your dissatisfaction about what happened. This helps SSL to identify how and why the problem occurred and hopefully take steps to strengthen their systems.

 

Amidst all the frustration that I know many members have suffered over recent months, it will be no  consolation to hear that the staff at SSL are workers just like everyone else. But they never asked to see their functions outsourced anymore than our members did, and they were not responsible for the the systems and data transfer processes that have contributed to so much grief.

 

New HMRC problems

 

Here we go again. The underpayment notices of Tax 2014-15 being received by many members is being dealt with by Dean Rogers, our Assistant General Secretary. He has written to NOMS and is presently awaiting their response. 

 

Dean Rogers has asked me to forward the following advice to affected members.

 

Email NAPO (drogers@napo.org.uk) advising him of the problem. Give your name, employer and the amount that you've been told by HMRC you have over/under paid.

 

Call HMRC as requested by HMRC to ask for more details as to why there has been an error. DO THIS IN WORK TIME

 

Email NAPO back to confirm an outcome from the HMRC discussion.

 

This will allow NAPO to track cases with NOMS / CRC's and challenge for compensation where this becomes possible and ensure that further errors in PAYE are avoided. 

 

Dean and the team here will do all that we can to try and respond quickly but work pressures are such that initially we will seek to take this on collectively. Napo does need to know who individuals are so that we can try and get NOMS / CRC's to support and help resolve the cases. We will issue more news as soon as we can.

 

T&S woes

 

The new NPS travel and subsistence policy policy was issued in the summer, some months after the NEC signalled their approval as it being the best that was achievable.

 

As is often the case, we anticipated that the handling of this by NOMS was unlikely to help the communication process and we were not consulted before some, at times unintelligible, information was issued.

 

Formal ratification of the policy is expected to take place at next weeks NNC meeting but we are insisting that there must be a commitment by the NPS to deal with a number of residual issues that Members have raised and on which I am about to write to Colin Allars about. I will copy you into this over the course of what will again be an extremely busy week.