Updates from your negotiating teams: north west, north and Scotland

Stuart Anderson, negotiations executive

Since my last report, I have continued to advise and represent Children’s and Education Services group members, with most of the work being over issues arising from workload problems, ill health and other exit arrangements.

However we are always engaged in collective matters, including consultation in advance of announcements that have a direct impact on our members.

Bradford

Bradford is coming towards the end of a public consultation on its education and children’s services department, with the following work streams involved:

• Outcomes and performance group: prevention and early help outcomes framework and future partnership arrangements to improve outcomes at a district and area level
• 0-19 core offer working group: building on the early years integrated care pathway to develop the proposed 0-19 pathway and offer
• workforce development group: developing a 0-19 workforce self-assessment tool
• strategic commissioning group.

Staff consultation on this first stage ended on 7 March, and, while we have had limited comments from members, Prospect expects to play more of a role when the employment implications on the consultation are discussed.

Derbyshire

Derbyshire are currently “remodelling” their social work team. This does not involve any Prospect members directly but is likely to have an impact on the way Derbyshire’s safeguarding team operates, so we will watch with interest.

Blackpool

The council has run budget consultation meetings, with reports on the current financial position being shared with trade unions. It was reported that there would be a budget gap of about £5.5m-£6m in 2018-19. Although there isn’t currently a specific plan tabled to address this, individual directors (including the children’s services director) will be looking for savings and Prospect will take part in consultations as and when they arise.

If you are affected by issues in your workplace, or if you feel that you need individual support for any work-related issue, please contact the ECS group office in Wakefield on [email protected]