North Lanarkshire

More regular readers from North Lanarkshire have been in touch over the re-evaluation of certain Council jobs which was agreed following the equal pay settlement earlier this year. 

The people contacting me are anxious at the lack of feedback from both the Council and the trade unions, so here are a few obvious things that should be happening if the exercise is being handled in a way that protects the interests of all the staff involved.   

• The process of job evaluation (JE) should always act operate in an open and transparent manner - all the more so in North Lanarkshire where senior mangers and the unions made such a dog's dinner of things back in 2006/07.
• Everyone affected by the process is entitled to understand how their jobs have been assessed because the JE scores awarded to specific jobs are subsequently used to determine their grades and pay.
• The details of all Job Descriptions and all JE factor scores should be made available to the workforce before any final decisions are made, so that employees can understand how the 'rank order' of jobs works in North Lanarkshire Council. 
• In other words, how can Home Carers be confident that their jobs have been properly and fairly assessed, if they do not know how other jobs have been treated, especially traditional male jobs which received much more favourable treatment in the past?
• Last time round (in 2006/07) the Council's approach to job evaluation amounted to little more than an old-fashioned 'stitch-up' with many of the key decisions taking place behind closed doors, so let's hope that in 2015/16 the workforce is not witnessing a repeat performance.