attractorconsulting.com

Central Manchester University Hospitals Trust recently announced it’s plans to withhold incremental pay increases for employees who have taken more than 18 days off sick or had four separate sick absences. This move forms part of it’s plans to save £120m by 2014 while protecting services.

The Trust was keen to point out that the new policy, being introduced from 1 October 2010, would be discretionary and would be applied in a manner that would not be discriminatory for people with long-term illnesses or those with disabilities.

NHS organisations are clearly looking for ways to save money but potential savings from implementing this policy would probably be “vanishingly small”.

UNISON officials reflected there was nothing in existing contracts providing that staff could be denied increments on the basis of absence and expressed the view NHS Trusts acting in this way would be in breach of the existing employment contracts and confirmed it would take legal action on behalf of affected staff.

In an article in Personnel Today, a legal adviser from Beachcrofts said the legality of the scheme would depend on what the staff contracts of employment say and how flexible the Trust is in applying the policy. He suggested it was unlikely the employment contracts were so prescriptive as to set out a mechanism for deciding upon pay rises and considered employers would normally have flexibility to consider a variety of factors when looking at pay rises.

So what is the position and how will the organisation fare if it proceeds without a local negotiated agreement? Read the rest of this entry →

When Network Rail announced its bonus payments in June 2010, there was widespread condemnation of the reward of it’s senior managers. The Office of the Rail Regulator (ORR) had expressed some criticism of Network Rail in relation to train punctuality and employee safety describing results as “mixed”, warning that bonus payments should reflect performance.

Pre-tax profits were down from £1.52bn to £395m for the last year, reflecting asset revaluations, a drop in revenue and higher network investment.

With these mixed results, the proposed bonus pot of £2.35m was criticised by government spokesmen though shareholders eventually supported the payments.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Tax Payers Alliance expressed its outrage that a private sector organisation providing public services (TPA used the phrase “technically being a private company”) should make significant bonus payments to its top staff “… one hundred per cent of which is being paid by you, the taxpayer.” TPA accused the government of ‘weak-words’ on the matter.

In the end however, we must recognise an earlier government decided to place control of the rail network at arms length in a private body, further away in fact than many banks are currently. In the long run this is most likely to be in the long term interest of rail services and the general public. But can big bonusus be justified? Read the rest of this entry →

Photo: Material Boy, Flickr

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has recommended wider use of performance-related pay in the public sector while Personnel Today’s “Austerity Panel” has rejected this as a technique for improving productivity.

Yet when the government has used performance-related pay and bonuses as an incentive for public sector workers, it has faced criticism. Writers at the Tax Payers Alliance appear to consider public sector workers unworthy of reward for performance!

Personnel Today quoted Graham White, HR Director of Westminster Council and Roger Seifert, Professor of Industrial Relations and HR management at Wolverhampton Business School as contradicting the CIPD’s suggestions – highlighting the difficulties and distorting impact of performance pay.

So what evidence is there on successful use of performance pay in the public sector? Read the rest of this entry →

The NHS White Paper, “Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS”  represents the completion of a devolution journey the NHS has been undertaking for over a decade. Moving all service providers either to Foundation Trust status or to one of a number of social enterprise models, it effectively de-nationalises NHS organisations.

In future, NHS services would be delivered through a wide range of diverse organisations – based on different legal frameworks and working in different ways.

When it comes to workforce issues, most people are currently focusing on the impact on those involved in commissioning, planning, inspecting, monitoring and managing the NHS. Staff losing jobs, reassigning function to new GP consortia, possible TUPE transfers and skills retention challenges.

But what does all this mean for the workforce delivering care? When the dust settles, these are the people we rely on to maintain high quality patient experiences.

While it might feel a little early, it’s worth considering what the provider organisations emerging from the shake up might look like. Read the rest of this entry →