Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Cllr Stephen Carr and Cllr Colin Smith acted as Substitute.

Apologies were also received from Cllr Michael Turner.

From the Staff Side, apologies were received from Kathy Smith, and Mary Odoi.

There were no declarations of interest.

The minutes of the meeting held on 21^st October 2015 were agreed.

The Staff Side would like to ask the following question:

Are members aware of the details of the joint union pay claim and the progress on pay negotiations?

Mr Glenn Kelly stated that when the Chief Executive previously discussed the issue of staff being transferred out from the local authority, he promised that although there would be fewer staff working directly for the Council, they would be better paid. Mr Kelly stated that the LBB workforce had dropped by 15% over the last 4 years, and that this equated to £7m. He expressed concern that although staff numbers had decreased, the Council still had to maintain its statutory obligations and consequently work pressures on staff had increased. There was no indication of staff pay increasing to compensate the workforce.

Mr Kelly stated that since 2010, wages had lagged behind the RPI by 20%, and that this had meant that lower paid workers had in effect lost £1400.00 each, and that middle band workers had lost £3k. He continued by referencing the removal of the Essential User Car Allowance which he claimed had resulted in staff losing £1k per annum in real terms. This was ongoing whilst private sector wages were increasing.

Mr Kelly stated that the Staff Side were asking for a flat rate increase in wages of £1 per hour, and the adoption of the “London Living Wage “ of £9.40 per hour. Mr Kelly declared that 60 LBB workers were being paid below the London Living Wage, and also 461 school workers. Mr Kelly asked the Employer’s side why they did not support the LLW when Boris Johnson did. Mr Kelly stated that he was seeking a guarantee that there would be no further negative changes to pay and conditions. He also asked for a final and fair settlement for schools staff, and support for staff that were paid term time only. Some school workers were unable to claim out of work benefits during school holidays.

The Chairman addressed the issue concerning the claim for £1.00 per hour, and stated that the cost of this would be £4m which was too expensive. It was the case that LBB paid £8.20 as an hourly rate, which was well above the national minimum wage. Cllr Tim Stevens JP remarked that it was absurd to be making a pay claim of this nature, when the money was not available. He further stated that if LBB wanted to adopt the Statutory Living Wage of £9.00, they had until 2020 to do so. There would be confirmation of the staff pay award in due course.

Cllr Angela Wilkins asked if there could be a dialogue concerning these matters, rather than just a blanket response. She asked if the Employer’s Side was going to comment on the matters raised concerning the terms and conditions of teaching staff.

The Director of Human Resources confirmed that the Employer’s Side were aware of the details of the joint union pay claim, and progress on pay negotiations. He asked why the matter was being raised at the LJCC when all parties were already aware. The Director advised that matters were not straightforward, as schools needed to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17.

Unite have received a response on behalf of the Council indicating that it is not prepared to accept the “Fair Deal for Public Services” Procurement Strategy (set out below).

Members are asked to consider the specific points raised in the strategy and advise which aspects they would be prepared to accept?

Procurement Strategy

•  A full Service Review to assess how in-house provision can be improved and enhanced, should be carried out before a decision is made to undertake an options appraisal

•  The local authority’s Corporate Procurement Strategy should include Protocols on employment policies, trade union and service user engagement in the procurement process

•  Contract award criteria should have a minimum 50% quality with technical criteria and price accounting for the remainder 

•  Quality standards and the methods by which they will be achieved and maintained should be a key part of the evaluation process. A public statement detailing the approach should be issued before the award of the contract 

•  Regular and rigorous monitoring throughout the contract period with monitoring staffing costs accounting for a minimum of 2 per cent of the annual contract value. 

General

•  Where practicable common rights for directly employed and contracted out workers 

•  No imposed zero hour contracts 

•  Commitment to minimise use of agency staff. 

•  Commitment to abide by the agency worker legislation. 

•  Adoption of Living Wage Foundation status.

In-house Services

•  Commitment to maintain national agreements 

Contracted out services

•  No downward harmonisation in contacted out services 

•  Maintenance of full trade union rights and facilities in contracted out services 

•  Contracted out workers protected by council union oversight committee 

For clarification, the items headed “General”, “In House Services” and “Contracted Out Services” are all sub sections of the Procurement Strategy.

Mr Dave Starling (LBB Head of Corporate Procurement) attended to answer questions pertaining to the Procurement Strategy. The case for the Staff Side was presented by Gill Slater (LBB Regeneration and Transformation Service).

Ms Slater outlined issues that had been identified previously concerning particular contracts and asked if Members would be prepared to review the Procurement Strategy at the Contracts Working Party meetings. The Chairman responded to this by commenting that the Staff Side had previously been asked to produce a business case but had failed to do so.

Mr Starling outlined LBB’s Procurement Strategy and statutory obligations. He explained that LBB contracts would normally have a minimum 40% quality content and would comply with all statutory requirements.

Cllr Angela Wilkins referred to the information that had been submitted on the agenda concerning the “Fair Deal for Public Services Procurement Strategy”. She stated that the question raised was what aspects of the Strategy LBB would be prepared to accept. She requested that a blanket response be avoided, and that Members constructively consider what aspects may be reasonable to adopt.

The Director of Human Resources felt that some of the issues raised were red herrings, and noted that every contractor had to comply with agency worker legislation. It was the case that new legislation was in place to deal with the issue of Zero Hours contracts. He expressed the view that LBB could not instruct a contractor how to behave. 

Cllr Wilkins responded that the Director was not serious in his response, and was not answering comprehensively. The Chairman commented that the Employer’s side were taking the concerns seriously, but that the LJCC was not empowered to make decisions—the LJCC could only make recommendations to take forward. He expressed the view that the LJCC were simply hearing the reiteration of old issues.

Mr Glen Kelly responded that it was true that the issues were not new, but the problem was that the issues had not been addressed. He stated that the Staff Side had drafted a joint consultation document, but this had been rejected. He declared that the Contracts Working Party were aware of  the issues. Mr Kelly asked the Employer’s Side to refrain from saying that they could not do anything, and stated that they should use their influence to bring about change.

Cllr Simon Fawthrop suggested that “one size does not fit all” and that LBB had to be flexible and pragmatic. He pointed out that A £500,000 contract with Bromley College had been called back, in which illustrated LBB’s flexibility and business sense. Mr Kelly responded that he found it strange that other contracts had been given to Bromley College when it was obvious that they lacked the expertise to fulfil the contractual obligations, and that one of the Bromley College contracts had incurred a £300k deficit.

Ms Lesley Moore ( LBB Assistant Director for Corporate Projects and Transformation) highlighted that the contract outsourced to Liberata was working well, had maintained service level agreements, and that only one  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18.

The Staff Side would like to ask the following question concerning the use of Council Reserves to protect local services:

In light of the recent announcement by the Secretary of State for the Department of Communities and Local Government that “now is the time to make efficient use of  their [local authority] assets and resources to provide the services local people want to see”,reiterated by the Chancellor in the Spending Review and Autumn Statement, is the Council proposing to explore how it can use its significant reserves to protect local services?   

Cllr Nicholas Bennett JP noted that the comment quoted from the Chancellor referred to “assets and resources”, but it had been transmuted by the Staff Side to “reserves” instead, and that these were not the same.

The Chairman stated that it was the case that LBB were exploring how it could use its assets and resources to protect local services.

Mr Glenn Kelly expressed the view that central government had embarked on a funding attack on local authorities, and in the light of this, he wondered what LBB were planning to do going forward. He asked if LBB was going to carry on regardless and just cut more services. He stated that there was not much left to cut as most services had been cut back to statutory minimums.

The Chairman stated that LBB did have a long term strategy, and were waiting for the budget settlement before developing future plans. Cllr Fawthrop commented that LBB did use reserves to invest in properties and then used these returns to protect council services.

Cllr Colin Smith stated that it was bizarre to seek the use of Council Reserves in the current financial climate. It was the case that since 2010/11, £67m in savings had been required, with another £53m required by 2020. He declared that it would be foolish to plug revenue gaps with capital reserves, and cited the example of the Greek economy. He stated that LBB should continue with its current prudent course of action which was to liquidate non performing assets, and transfer the funds into better yielding investments.  By adopting this policy, LBB had been able to allocate £6m into vital services. He stated that this was the correct policy, and was pleased with the way it had worked.

Mr Kelly responded that LBB had been playing monopoly and had not been protecting services. He continued that LBB would not be able to fund a £53m funding gap, and that George Osborne was foolish.

The Committee is requested to note that the next meeting will be held on 25thFebruary 2016.

The date of the next meeting was confirmed as 25^th February 2016.