From amicus - MSF
Head of Health, Gail Cartmail General Secretary, Roger Lyons
Reps Direct should be forwarded by email to other members and put in printed form on the notice boards for all to see, both members and non-members.
These are the questions raised by members in EI sites. The answers have been agreed by the staff and management secretariat of Agenda for Change.
Where paragraph references are given, these relate to the Agenda for Change Proposed Agreement published in March 2003.
Q55. Preceptorship
Paragraph 1.8 states "Staff joining band 5 as new entrants
will have accelerated progression through the first two points
in six monthly steps, providing those responsible for the
relevant professional standards in the organisation are
satisfied with their standard of practice. This twelve month
period will be referred to as "Preceptorship"". Could it be
confirmed that the meaning of this is that a person has an
increment six months after joining and another twelve months
after joining, and that their incremental date thereafter
remains the anniversary of joining. There is some scope to read
the paragraph as meaning that the person goes to the second
point after six months, with the implication that this date
becomes the incremental date. Paragraph 1.8 suggests that all
new entrants to band 5 have accelerated progressions, however
the staff booklet makes reference to "Qualified professional
staff". What is the correct interpretation? Would a qualified
accountant be included?
A. Logically any professionally qualified person is covered.
In effect this means that all staff in Band 5 will move up
after 6 and 12 months rather than after 12 months, as is the
case in other bands.
Q56. Overtime
Should part time staff be paid double time for overtime worked
on a bank holiday? Para 3.1 says that work on public holidays
will be paid as double time, whereas paragraph 3.4 says that
part time staff should be paid plain time. Is the latter the
correct interpretation?
A. Yes unless the bank holiday hours take them beyond 37.5
hours for the week, in which case overtime at double time will
be payable.
Q57. Annual leave and bank holidays
Paragraph 13.4 states "where staff work standard shifts other
than 7½ hours excluding meal breaks, annual leave
entitlements should be calculated on an hourly basis …".
However, 13.5 states "all part-time staff should have their
annual leave and general public holiday entitlement calculated
in hours on a pro-rata basis". Is there intended to be this
distinction between the two regarding public holidays? Our
belief is that staff working full time hours over four long
days (for example) should not have eight bank holidays, but
should have 60 hours.
A. Annual leave and general public holidays
should be calculated in hours. In order to provide fair
entitlements to staff who work variable length shifts and or
part time.
Q58. Protection of hours on promotion following
assimilation.
This was subject to a debate at the recent payroll leads
meeting. That group, believes that protected hours cease if an
assimilated person is subsequently promoted. Para 46.21 was
cited as the reason for this. However 46.21 relates to pay
only, and 46.28 says that 'these protection arrangements will
continue to apply where staff move to a post with the same
hours under the old pay system during the protection period'.
Could this matter be clarified please?
A. 46.28 overrides 46.21
Q59. Local RRP
If at a future date the trust reached agreement to move a
service to another location and the new service area/staff
groups were not attracting RRP (or only short term RRP) but the
staff transferring were in receipt of long term RRP what would
happen? We understand that staff moving voluntarily to a new
post/area that is not eligible for RRP loses the RRP but this
situation would be akin to organisational change.
Would we: -
a) Remove RRP at the point of transfer?
b) Apply the local Trust Protection/Organisational Change
policy and procedure. In which case up to a one year pay
protection period applies
c) The post holder retains the RRP for the duration of their
employment in the Trust.
d) The post holder gets protection as per AFC but we think pay
protection under AFC is all about assimilation
e) Something else
A. A. Could we have a specific example of where and when this
is going to occur.
Q60. In 1996, senior managers in this Trust had their
Geographical Allowance consolidated in to their basic pay.
Since then, newly appointed Senior Managers have been appointed
annual salaries with no contractual reference to and no
additional entitlement to Geographical Allowance. There are
also some Senior Managers, who TUPE transferred into this Trust
since 1996, who still receive basic pay and Geographical
Allowance. Our interpretation of assimilation rules is that we
should use the individuals annual salary, whatever that is, as
the basis for assimilation, and apply High Cost Area supplement
as an additional payment. Bearing in mind this could incur
significant additional cost (between £3000 and
£5000 per individual) is this interpretation
correct?
A. May we have specific examples of this in order to give
further consideration to the issue
Q61. We have taken the starting point for assimilation
within an assigned band as the employee's current basic pay
before assimilation at the time (e.g. 1 October 2003), not the
basic pay before assimilation at 1 June 2003. We will take into
account any promotions, demotions, increments and any other
basic pay changes at the time the individual is being
assimilated. The arrears will then be calculated and backdated
to 1 June 2003. This will avoid issues of protection and the
additional work that this would entail, plus possible negative
impressions of the AFC as a result. Is this correct?
A. We are content for this to be resolved locally.
Q62. Protection on assimilation.
Overtime is not protectable but shift permia and bonus are.
What about those elements of shift premia and bonus, which
relate to the overtime hours - do they belong with overtime or
with shift premia and bonus. The answer to this was contractual
overtime is protected. My query is about whether to protect the
shift and bonus elements of overtime pay that still needs to be
addressed.
A. Which groups are being talked about? May we have concrete
examples of the problem/current working and earnings/projected
working and earnings?
Q63. Will new appointees who have joined at transitional
point move to the normal minimum at the same time as the last
assimilated person moves on regardless of their increment date
and what point they are on? Or will they move through the
transitional points at the same time as the last assimilated
person so that there is never a lower transitional point in
use? What increment date do such new appointees have? (If they
move through the points at normal incremental date is it
possible that there will always be someone on those points when
other new people start - potentially making these points
permanent.)
A. Where the lowest transitional point available in any year
is in use all staff appointed to it during the year will move
up a point on the 1st June following appointment. This means
their effective increment date will therefore be June 1st
regardless of when in the year they were appointed (assuming
they were first appointed or promoted after June 1st 2003).
Where existing staff assimilate to the lowest available
transitional point, and this depends on how much below their
assimilated band their pre-assimilation salary is, they will
progress on their normal incremental date to the next point.
Where new staff are appointed to a transitional point higher
than the lowest available they can retain their date of
appointment as the incremental date.
Q64. Our most pressing issue is the one relating to Flexi
Bank staff as we have not made any plans for them under AFC. As
you will recall the plan for flexi staff is to transfer to
NHSP. The rates of pay for NHSP are out with AFC and are set at
a higher hourly rate to compete with Agencies in any case. This
is a problem for us now as the NHSP project plan has slipped
and the staff are not planning to transfer in October 2003. The
new date is unknown which is unhelpful but the reality! We will
have an issue about covering the flexi shifts when our staff
move over to AFC as we won't know what to pay and bearing in
mind we plan to pay some staff in October so the issue is very
live for us now. There are three specific issues that we would
like advice on; reference period, on call and pay
progression.
A. We consider that as Flexi-bank staff are employees their
pay once transferred should be in line with AfC. The labour
market in which they compete is that governed by agency rates.
You may wish to consider the use of RRP to deal with this.
Given that staff work flexibility, you may need to consider a
generic form of KSF. Pay progression should operate as for any
other staff. The reference period will probably need to relate
to the frequency with which Flexi-bank staff i.e. if they work
less frequently a longer reference period may be applicable to
smooth any peaks and troughs. If staff are required to be on
call, the agreement should apply in the normal way. If
infrequent, a longer reference period would provide a better
indicator.
Q65. Part time workers rights
The issue is that some part timers in order to fit shift
patterns do some long weeks and some short weeks and in the
long weeks come closer to the 37.5 hours that in the short
weeks. In turn they can do extra hours - sometimes voluntarily
and sometimes by obligation - and in a long week that could
mean occasionally exceeding the 37.5 hours in that week while
over the monthly pay envelope or shift cycle they would on
average not have exceeded the 37.5 hours. This is common enough
for full timers who might work 40 hours this week and 35 the
next but be paid for 37.5 hours. For part timers the issue is
that for the hours between their (say) 30 hours per week and
37.5 they enjoy basic plus enhancements (their "plain time
rate" referred to in paragraph 3.4) but for those over 37.5
hours would enjoy just time and a half on their basic, and thus
potentially get a better rate for some overtime hours than
others depending whether they are done in long or short weeks.
I have already suggested that hours for part timers in those
circumstances should be averaged over the work cycle, but would
like to be able to confirm what JSG's view of this is.
A. The answer depends on what the contract says. If it says
the hours are, say, 30 per week then in any single week where
hours exceed 30, the first 7.5 will be paid at plain time and
hours beyond 37.5 will be paid at overtime rates. But if the
contract says 30 per week averaged over a four week period for
example then the hours between 120 and 150 would be paid at
plain time and any additional hours beyond 150 would be at
overtime rates, regardless of the actual number of hours worked
in any one week.
Q66. JSG may want to look at paragraph 2.2 in conjunction with this query. Para 2.2 implies locally determining what a "short period" is and that could affect earnings. Our assumption at the moment is that "short periods" of leave referred to in 2.2 do not apply to "sick leave". Regardless of what constitutes "short period" at paragraph 2.2 can we clarify the intention of the sick pay provisions in relation to out of hour's enhancements. I think the intention is that "full pay" will for sick pay purposes be basic plus enhancements - 14.4 seems to say that - although for those on less regular enhancements who are in effect paid in arrears with enhancements this quarter reflecting actuals for the last quarter. It would also be helpful to have clarity then about what is meant by "half pay" - our assumption is that it should be read as "half full pay".
There are two other matters still be grappled with that
may come JSG's way but I have asked the Site to take them to
the Project Leads event on 8th October to share with the other
11 and compare intentions elsewhere. These relate to Paragraph
2.2 where EAAT's intention is to interpret "short period" as 13
weeks; and generally on out of hours they think they will count
up the unsociable hours worked on bank holidays and share
average them across a team - this in effect double counts some
hours but is very convenient to do for payroll. It is not only
convenient for EAAT, but only extremely rarely does it move an
individual to a higher rate of out of hours, but in other types
of Trusts this may still be a convenient way of calculating but
could cause greater movement to higher categories of
enhancement. No doubt a discussion at the Project Leads day
will expose whether this can be left for local discretion or
whether it needs a question to be posed to JSG.
A. The short periods in 2.2 refer to a situation where someone
is taken off their normal pattern of work and put on to another
one, for instance to go on training or perhaps to cover another
post with different working patterns. Sick pay is calculated on
the basis of what the individual would have received had he/she
been at work; it therefore includes the normal unsociable
hour's addition. Half full pay is half normal pay, i.e. half
what the individual would have received including any
unsociable hours addition had he/she been working normally.