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WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE CHIEF MINISTER BY DEPUTY G.P. SOUTHERN OF ST. HELIER ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 5th JULY 2011
Question
What specific measures does the States Employment Board (SEB') have under consideration to achieve the £14m of CSR savings identified by the Tribal reports on States employees' terms and conditions?
Have any changes to the terms and conditions of any specific groups of employees yet been identified and/or agreed, and if so, can he state which groups and what changes and whether any refer to no-strike agreements?
Have any specific proposals been formally put to employee representatives yet and if not why not?
How many meetings have been held between representatives of employees and SEB and what was their nature and duration?
Is it his intention to include specific and costed proposals to achieve the £14m savings in the 2012 Annual Business Plan to be presented to the States on 13th July 2011 and if not why not, and when will proposals be made public? Will any proposals be made public before the run up to the next election starts in early September?
Answer
The Tribal Report highlighted a range of options, some more practical for implementation than others.
To date a temporary pause has been placed on changes to allowances, for example the mileage, and discussions will take place with Employee Representatives regarding these allowances as part of the overall negotiations on revised Terms and Conditions. At this stage, there have not been any discussions on the inclusion of no-strike agreements although all aspects of Terms and Conditions of employment will be open to discussion with the relevant Unions. Some employee groups already have such a clause in their existing agreement.
The States Employee Relations team are currently working on proposals for Civil Servants and Manual workers. In that regard the team have held exploratory meetings with both Prospect and Unite to explain the broad areas under consideration. This will include a desire to harmonise under a single pay spine for both groups and will coincide with consultations/negotiations on a revised set of single policies, terms and conditions.
Unite in particular have expressed a preference to engage more fully when concrete proposals are put before them. A full package of proposals will be ready to coincide with the negotiation process for pay claims for 2012. The broad direction for Civil Servants and Manual Workers has been shared with SEB but detailed discussion of the Management sides position prior to going into negotiation with employee representatives has not yet taken place.
Turning to the business plan process for 2012, it would be wrong to anticipate the outcome of negotiations prior to them taking place and therefore the pay budgets remain unchanged from 2011. As part of the 2010/11 two year pay award, agreement was reached with all negotiating groups to move the pay award period into line with the annual budget cycle. Therefore, we anticipate the process of negotiation to commence in the autumn of 2011 and will take sometime to complete. This process will be dependent upon receipt of 2012 pay claims which we expect to be lodged by Trade Unions in late summer/early autumn.