Meeting documents

The Committee received a report divided into 3 sections as follows:

·              Section A summarised the current position of the parties following the discussions at the meetings on 18 May;

·              Section B set out the 6 options that had been contained in a report to Personnel Committee on 9 February 2010; and

·              Section C developed a range of possible variations of the “hybrid” option 6.

The report explained that the point of the meeting was to discuss the options with a view to narrowing them down so that a small number could be developed further for joint consideration and possible agreement.

The Chairman opened the discussion by referring to the Council’s position and saying that the proposals in the Coalition Government’s budget had made the Council’s financial position even more bleak and that the picture was likely to worsen even further following the Comprehensive Spending Review due in the autumn. Reductions in expenditure were inevitable and with salary costs making up a substantial proportion of the Council’s budget it was also inevitable that reductions would need to be made in staff costs. Whilst understanding the concerns of staff and recognising the contribution they had made it was now time to stop the talking and make the reductions through adoption of one of the options.

Alan Whichelow referred to the Terms of Reference of the Committee and emphasised that the role of the Committee was to negotiate which Unison was prepared to do in order to reach a position which was acceptable for its members. It was not the role of Unison to consult on savings and on this issue Alan Whichelow urged the Council to revisit the paper prepared by Heads of Service identifying savings options, a paper which had not identified the PRP Scheme as a possible saving option. The PRP Scheme offered outstanding value for money and if staff morale and goodwill were to be maintained then it was essential to maintain it.

The Chairman, whilst accepting that the PRP Scheme had benefits, reiterated that the Council could no longer afford the £300,000 to fund it. If the savings required in staff costs were not found by making changes in the PRP scheme then they would have to be found through other ways e.g. staff redundancies or a 5% pay cut across the board.

During the discussion that ensued Councillors Miss Appleby, Dibbo, Phillips and Warder all explained why the challenges facing the Council were requiring it to make changes to the PRP Scheme to reduce staff costs. Alan Whichelow, Ian Snudden, Tina Pearce and Maxine Shirley, whilst understanding the Council’s position, questioned whether members had already reached a decision to scrap the PRP Scheme and emphasised the importance of entering into meaningful negotiations so that a mutually acceptable agreement could be reached.

At the end of the discussion and in order to advance the negotiations it was agreed that more work should be done to identify the costs and benefits of options 6c (i) - (iv) together with an assessment of the impact of maintaining the scheme as a mechanism for appraising staff etc but with the facility to make payments suspended until the budgetary position improved.