Letter to Argyll and Bute Council's Chief Executive

8th March 2007

Dear Mr McLellan

I would like to request an urgent meeting with you regarding the Job Evaluation Process that has been carried out by this council, and also regarding other issues concerning the information supplied to employees regarding the Single Status proposals.

• In particular, we would like to discuss the fact that Job Overviews, which have been signed off some time ago, have "apparently been tampered with".
• Some elected members are stating that they did not vote for the proposals whilst a senior member has stated that all members, irrespective of their political persuasion, unanimously voted for the proposals.
• Councillors are stating that they do not know the true nature of what they have so far agreed to, which is bringing the whole process under dispute. You may be interested to know that some of them have requested to come to UNISON meetings, which could indicate a breakdown of the trust Elected members place in the information that they receive from the Senior Officers of the Council.
• Packs have not been sent to some of our members, wrong packs have been sent to other members and have had to be sent back.
• From discussions with our members it is clear to us that they are questioning the credibility, the transparency, the quality assurance criteria, the robustness, which is resulting in them deciding on the complete lack of confidence in the process. This has not been assisted with the confusion etc. being added by the "help lines" and the "managers" currently involved.
• When members are contacting their designated personnel contacts, they are not receiving adequate, clear and consistent answers to their questions.
• Clear guidelines on scoring levels need to be available to all staff, not only those with access to the council intranet.
• Managers are giving out the wrong information, for example, some have informed our members that they will be paid for a 37 hour working week regardless of whether they work 37, 35 hours or even 25 hours.
• Given that the Single Status process has been running since 1999, it is disappointing that the Council has not managed to incorporate Single Status issues into its programme of training for managers leaving them ill-equipped to deal with the concerns of the employees for whom they are responsible. In many cases, managers have had to come to UNISON for guidance, given their complete lack of understanding of the process involved.

Yours sincerely
Marion Power
Branch Secretary