Glasgow and Job Evaluation (WPBR)
Glasgow’s Workforce Pay and Benefits review (WPBR) is coming under increasing scrutiny – by people inside and outside Scotland largest council.
Glasgow’s WPBR is simply another name for a job evaluation (JE) scheme – bit it’s a JE scheme with a difference because Glasgow invented its own ‘home grown’ scheme – and suddenly ditched the national JE scheme which had been developed with COSLA as part of the 1999 Single Status Agreement.
The trade unions also supported the national scheme – because the design of the scheme followed clear principles – and the rules about implementing the national JE scheme were based on good practice.
In other words, the national scheme had been tried and tested – its key principles were clear and easily understood – and the national scheme was to be implemented in an open and transparent way.
But Glasgow’s WPBR is a rather different animal – no one seems to know who designed the scheme – or how it was tested before being imposed on thousands of council staff.
The trade unions seem to be going along with the Glasgow scheme – for the most part anyway – the trade unions have certainly not mounted a vigorous campaign to highlight some of the glaring problems with the Glasgow WPBR.
One of the key problems with the Glasgow scheme is that – alone among Scottish councils – Glasgow has introduced the notion of Core and Non-Core Pay.
Work done in relation to Core Pay is assessed using identifiable job evaluation techniques – even though the scores awarded to some jobs appear to be spectacularly wrong.
But Non-Core Pay is a truly bizarre concept – because people are rewarded not for the content of work they do, as such – but for when this work is carried out.
So Glasgow employees are awarded extra points (and extra points mean extra pay) for working full-time hours. Glasgow employees also get extra points for doing a ‘task and finish’ job.
Yet both of these provisions discriminate against women workers – because many women work part-time hours and very few women work in task and finish jobs (unlike the refuse workers, for example).
So, on the face of it Glasgow JE scheme appears to discriminate against the majority of its employees and - therefore - the WPBR is open to challenge.
Glasgow’s WPBR is simply another name for a job evaluation (JE) scheme – bit it’s a JE scheme with a difference because Glasgow invented its own ‘home grown’ scheme – and suddenly ditched the national JE scheme which had been developed with COSLA as part of the 1999 Single Status Agreement.
The trade unions also supported the national scheme – because the design of the scheme followed clear principles – and the rules about implementing the national JE scheme were based on good practice.
In other words, the national scheme had been tried and tested – its key principles were clear and easily understood – and the national scheme was to be implemented in an open and transparent way.
But Glasgow’s WPBR is a rather different animal – no one seems to know who designed the scheme – or how it was tested before being imposed on thousands of council staff.
The trade unions seem to be going along with the Glasgow scheme – for the most part anyway – the trade unions have certainly not mounted a vigorous campaign to highlight some of the glaring problems with the Glasgow WPBR.
One of the key problems with the Glasgow scheme is that – alone among Scottish councils – Glasgow has introduced the notion of Core and Non-Core Pay.
Work done in relation to Core Pay is assessed using identifiable job evaluation techniques – even though the scores awarded to some jobs appear to be spectacularly wrong.
But Non-Core Pay is a truly bizarre concept – because people are rewarded not for the content of work they do, as such – but for when this work is carried out.
So Glasgow employees are awarded extra points (and extra points mean extra pay) for working full-time hours. Glasgow employees also get extra points for doing a ‘task and finish’ job.
Yet both of these provisions discriminate against women workers – because many women work part-time hours and very few women work in task and finish jobs (unlike the refuse workers, for example).
So, on the face of it Glasgow JE scheme appears to discriminate against the majority of its employees and - therefore - the WPBR is open to challenge.
