UNISON met with the Leader of the Council and senior management recently and we were informed that they had awarded the contract to review the Council’s NJC Job Evaluation Scheme to the Hay Group. This means that the previous exercise to evaluate the old scale 1-6 jobs on the NJC scheme is to be abandoned and all grades will now be assessed using the Hay Scheme.
This means that all previous NJC evaluations will be discarded and the Hay Scheme applied across the board. Jobs above the old scale 6 are already being reviewed by the Hay Group.
Existing Job Information Questionnaire’s (JIQs) will be used by the Hay Group to re-evaluate the jobs and UNISON will be involved in top level meetings to ensure transparency and consistency – something that was sadly lacking in many of the previous evaluations.
UNISON Branch Secretary, Nicole Berrisford said;
“Obviously we are disapponted that the Council has chosen to abandon the nationally agreed NJC scheme, a scheme which has been implemented successfully in many authorities across the country, but we are where we are in Derby and UNISON wants to move forward to work with the Council.
Regional Organiser, Andy Freeman, added;
It is a shame that the Council was deaf to our many protestations about the implementation previously and that attitude has cost the Council, and Council tax payers dearly, but hopefully with a new team in place who are saying that they have learned from their experience, we can sort this mess out.
UNISON were made aware in the previous evaluations that many members were very unhappy with their lack of involvement in drafting and agreeing their JIQs and we have reiterated these concerns. We have secured agreement that all the anomalies that have been raised previously will be reviewed by Hay and UNISON will be meeting with the Hay Team to go through these anomalies in more detail.
It is important therefore that if you had any issue with your JIQ that you contact UNISON now if you have not already done so. You can email the Branch Office at UNISON@derby.gov.uk and we will ensure your comments are given to the Hay Group.
Pay protecton will continue to remain in place for ALL evaluations and UNISON will update members regularly on progress of the negotiations on the new scheme including the new Appeals process and pay modelling.
UN ISON members in the Council and in the Schools affected will be contacted directly by email addresses where we have them. If you don’t receive our emails please email the Branch at UNISON@derby.gov.uk