North Lanarkshire and JES


Lots of readers from North Lanarkshire sent me the following statement on the NLC job evaluation (JE) review which appeared on the Facebook page of the local Unison branch the other day. 

JOB RE-EVALUATION PROJECT

As you will be aware, the Council and unions have been undertaking a joint re-evaluation process for certain posts, overseen and validated by an Independent Technical Expert. The joint team has now concluded their re-evaluation assessments and the Independent Technical Expert is now undertaking an Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) on the outcomes. The outcomes and EIA require to be considered by the Joint Re-evaluation Board and council before employees can be notified of the outcome of the re-evaluation of their job. Dates are currently been scheduled for a meeting of the Joint Re-evaluation Board.

My immediate reaction to the statement is that it raises many more questions than answers, but here are some of the obvious points I imagine local union members are asking themselves.
  1. Why is there no explanation or apology for the delay in completing the JE exercise?
  2. Why is there no definite end date in sight after all this time? 
  3. Why is there no comment from the about the recent 'interference' in the JE exercise from Home Care managers?
  4. Why do the unions not share the information collected during the process so far, including all the new Job Descriptions and JE Factor Scores?
  5. Who is the Independent Technical Expert?
  6. Will the results of the Equality Impact Assessment be shared with union members?
  7. Will the report to the Joint Re-evaluation Board be shared with union members?
  8. Will the findings and recommendations of the Joint Re-evaluation Board be shared with union members?
Sounds to me as if this whole process is taking place behind closed doors, as it did  before in 2006/07 when key information was kept hidden from the NLC workforce and local union members. 

No doubt union members will be raising these issues with their local representatives, but if you ask me there is now a real danger of the workforce being presented with a fait accompli rather than a set of proposals which command people's confidence and trust. 

Because as I've said before on the blog site a properly run JE exercise, in my experience, operates on the basis of complete openness and transparency.

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