July 05, 2008
REVISED CODE OF CONDUCT - NAPO'S OBJECTIONS
The revised code of conduct recently placed on the database is not recognised by Napo, because there was insufficient consultation and negotiation on its contents.
The third paragraph of the document says:
‘We have agreed the code with the relevant trade unions and it applies to all staff, whether you are permanent, temporary or voluntary’ and the last paragraph says: ‘This policy has been agreed through the joint consultative machinery’
Both these statements are untrue.
We will be making further formal representations to HPA about this policy and we hope a proper agreement can be reached.
The main purpose of this note, however, is to explain to members why we object to the policy as it stands.
The first point to make is that we are agreed with the majority of its contents. Most of the content flows from the agreed 2003 code of conduct. You may recall last year we consulted with members about a proposed dress code. We received helpful feedback and this in turn informed our discussions with HR. The original dress code ran to some four pages and was unnecessarily prescriptive. It was subsequently incorporated into the 2008 code of conduct in a single paragraph. That was positive evidence of consultation and negotiation.
The areas where we are not content relates to the extensive sections on data protection, email and internet monitoring and some language.
INTELLIGIBILITY AND TRAINING
Paragraph 9 refers to duties and responsibilities in relation to data protection and says you should ‘familiarise yourself with, and comply with, all NPS security policies. (Incidentally in paragraph 20 which draws attention to related policies and key documents there is no mention of any security policies, so not clear what policies should be read!)
Presumably one of the key documents is the Email & Internet Communications Policy March 2006 – this runs to 21 pages. We don’t imagine many staff are familiar with this. The Napo view is that telling staff to ‘familiarise’ themselves is unreasonable. HPA we say must have a duty to ensure that staff understand policies and know the parameters of what is acceptable practice. It leaves staff extremely vulnerable to disciplinary charges if they unknowingly break the rules. There is a duty of care that HPA is failing to demonstrate and advice to ‘familiarise’ is insufficient in our view.
Data protection remains an arcane area for many staff and before an employer wishes to hold staff accountable for conduct the employer should ensure that staff are trained and clear in their responsibilities. This is the point that Napo has previously made about intelligibility. Paragraph 4.2 of the NPS Email and Internet Policy cautions:
‘Ensure all authorised users read this policy, are provided with adequate training and are both regularly reminded to comply and do comply with all “authorised user responsibilities” contained within this policy’
Where is the evidence of ‘adequate training’? This policy clearly puts an onus on HPA to take positive steps – adequate training – and we say that advice to familiarise yourself falls well below the threshold of adequate training.
MONITORING EMAIL AND INTERNET.
In paragraph 16.5 the code says …’employees should not assume that any emails sent are private and confidential....’ The clear inference here is that HPA will monitor your emails in the same way, irrespective of whether they are marked private or personal. We submit they are exceeding their authority in doing so and actually putting themselves at odds with advice on how monitoring at work should be conducted. The employer does not have a free hand to invade privacy.
Although not on the database, and seemingly forgotten by HPA, there was a document prepared in February 2006 which was shared with the unions (see download) and it represented an attempt to put some discipline into the process of monitoring. It set out three levels of monitoring and it stated on page 1:
‘…every effort will be made to avoid reading personal notes, although sometimes this will be inevitable. As soon as a note is identified as personal the note will be exited.’ (my italics). So there is a code of conduct that presumes unlimited powers to monitor all emails indiscriminately and another HPA document saying it will endeavor to respect emails that are marked private.
The Information Commissioner, who has published a code of practice on ‘monitoring at work’, makes it clear that employers should undertake an impact assessment of their monitoring practices towards ensuring that the impact of monitoring is as least intrusive as possible. The February document was a step in the right direction, but the code of conduct appears to adopt an unreasonable approach that does not respect an individual’s right to privacy, which does not evaporate when he/she enters the workplace. A weakness in the February document is that it is silent on whether the individual should be told if their email or internet use is being specifically rather than just routinely monitored. We say subjects should be informed and this is consistent with advice from the information commissioner. We therefore cannot accept the code of conduct as set out – it is unclear, suggests indiscriminate monitoring, contradicts the February 2006 document and is therefore in our view not compliant with good data protection practices.
LANGUAGE
The language of ‘theft’, ‘fraud’ and ‘deception’ in paragraph 15 is unnecessary. We have put this to HPA before but to no avail. All the foregoing are criminal offences and to say one too many personal emails constitutes theft, for example, is using alarmist language. It would be more measured to refer to ‘inappropriate’ usage. In that same section it says ‘very limited’ personal use of phones, emails, faxes will be tolerated – it gives an example of tolerable use – emergency contacts. This loose use of language leads to ambiguity. For example, in relation to email in paragraph 16.2 it says personal use of email is acceptable as long as it’s not excessive – and this is what the national policy, where it has been cut and pasted from, also says. This point is laboured to argue that personal use is not being abused if it’s not an emergency contact. In paragraph 2 there is mention to using ‘common sense’. We suggest the policy has suffered from some poor drafting and this will lead to confusions that could be avoided by leaving personal use in the realm of common sense and not seeking to be over-prescriptive.
DATA PROTECTION ADVICE FROM THE INFORMATION COMMISSIONER
INFORMATION COMMISSIONER: Monitoring at Work
The code states that workers are entitled to a degree of privacy in the workplace and, as a result, monitoring is usually intrusive. Employers can still carry out monitoring, but only when it can be justified by the benefits delivered (e.g. recording telephone calls for training purposes). In the view of the Information Commissioner, covert monitoring can only be justified in few exceptional circumstances.
What should employers do?
Outline in writing when workers can use the organisation’s telephone, e-mail and internet systems. Any restrictions on private use should be clearly expressed e.g. limits on the size of e-mail attachments, making overseas calls etc.
Restrictions on internet use should be specific. A ban on downloading “offensive material” would not be clear enough, without providing examples (e.g. pornographic images, racist terminology etc).
Clearly explain in writing if you intend to monitor your workers
You need to explain:
Purposes and reasons for monitoring.
The extent of monitoring.
The means used to monitor.
Penalties for breach of policy.
Take extra care if monitoring e-mails
Avoid opening e-mails, especially ones that clearly show that they are private and personal.
Encourage workers to mark personal e-mails as such. If it is necessary to check a worker’s e-mail account in their absence, make sure that they are aware of this.
Posted by Hampshire at 06:15 PM | Comments (0)
FORCED RETIREMENTS
There are laws that provide some positive protection against discrimination on the grounds of race, sex and gender, for example. This does not stop apparent discrimination, as in the pay disparities between the sexes, but laws are nonetheless progressive steps. Age discrimination is a bastion yet to be breached by strong laws, though proposed Government legislation seems likely to tackle some blatant forms of discrimination against the elderly, such as health screening and the difficulties in obtaining insurance, etc.
In this country there was a mandatory retirement age of 65. In most jobs, including probation, you had to go at 65. There have always been other arrangements in existence – you can become a prime minister at 65 and you could sit as a judge well in to your 70s, suggesting that experience and knowledge is valued in some areas.
In 2006 the law changed and workers were given the right to request to work beyond 65. However, employers were under no obligation to keep them on. The obligation on the employer is a ‘duty to consider’ requests to work beyond 65.
HPA have what is called a planned retirement policy. It was first discussed with the unions in February 2007. Napo asked at that time, why do we need a fixed retirement age? That question was never answered, two weeks later the policy was on the database, some three months before it was approved by the board. Given the links between age and discrimination it may have been helpful for the policy to have been subject to an ‘equalities impact assessment’ (which all policies/procedures should have) as that may have looked at the issues of forced retirements in the round and perhaps have amended or at least informed the two criteria that HPA set down for judging whether an individual would be able to work beyond 65.
The criteria are:
Staff have skills, knowledge or experience that are key to the Hampshire Probation Area meeting its objectives and which the Hampshire Probation Area will have difficulty replacing;
and/or
Staff are employed in posts that the Hampshire Probation Area will have difficulty recruiting to.
These criteria could be view as employer-centric – in that the loyalty, experience, performance and commitment of the individual will not be a significant consideration, in fact such qualities seem not to matter. It is all about what is in the interests of the employer – there is no balancing of interests, unlike in applications for flexible working where the employee has recourse to a legal remedy if he/she believes the employer has not reached a balanced and fair decision.
HPA is doing nothing illegal. As things stand with the law they are observing the minimum standards and going through the process of a duty to consider. On the other hand some organisations are going beyond the minimum for moral reasons – organisations that are hard-headed and business-focused - Tesco has offered its staff the chance to work beyond 65 on both moral and business grounds, and other retailers, including Marks & Spencer and Asda, have also relaxed or ditched the mandatory retirement age. With no disrespect to staff in Tesco’s it is perverse to think that you have a better chance of remaining in work as a shelf stacker than you do as a trained and experienced member of the probation service.
Sometimes it takes the law time to catch up with what is morally right. It was once legal to deny women the vote, to send children up chimneys, to imprison homosexuals and administer behaviour therapy to ‘correct’ their ‘distorted thinking’. There is a case going through the European Court at present – called the Hayday case it challenges the mandatory retirement age of 65. If successful then employers will not be able to get away with dismissing staff just because of age. The next stage of the case will come on 23rd September 2008 when the Advocate General will publish his opinion on the case. The Advocate General is a lawyer to the Court who was at the hearing. He gives guidance on judgments which the Court will usually follow.
In the meantime anyone forced to retire can register their case with an employment tribunal where it will be put on hold pending the outcome of Heyday. This was a positive step by the employment tribunals and it’s just regrettable, given that there will be a binding legal judgment through soon, that employers, including probation employers, are still forcing staff to retire. Those individuals may be able to claim compensation from their employers if Heyday wins, but that may be scant consolation for being forced to leave a job they wish to continue doing.
But as things stand: you can be dismissed at 65 and the only reason your employer really needs to give is that you are 65. Maybe in the years ahead when we look back on such practices they will be condemned as discriminatory and unenlightened.
Posted by Hampshire at 02:40 PM | Comments (0)
July 01, 2008
CODE OF CONDUCT: FOUL PLAY
If you read the chief officer’s briefing today you will be aware of his comments on the revised code of conduct policy. Here they are:
‘A revised Code of Conduct has now been approved. The Trade Unions have been consulted about it, but have not yet agreed the document. Nonetheless all HPA staff are expected to comply with its requirements. The Code of Conduct can be accessed via the HR database. All staff are urged to revisit and remind themselves of the Code of Conduct and become familiar with its changes.’
There is an entry on this website – 4th June – where we set out our concerns about this policy being unilaterally imposed by Barrie Crook. In fact we wrote to him last week urging that the policy be subject to further negotiations. We had hoped that some good sense would prevail, but the briefing scotched our hopes of further discussion. The code of conduct now joins another policy that was imposed - the forced retirement policy - on the database. Napo does not recognise the legitimacy of these policies and will register a formal dispute at the next meeting of the JNCC.
The chief officer is basically saying to Napo members that your contact of employment is being changed and he writes: ‘All staff are urged to revisit and remind themselves of the code of conduct and become familiar with its changes’. One of Napo’s major concerns about this policy was its intelligibility in relation to data protection and use of email. It is incredible that how the onus falls on staff and never on HPA to actually explain and communicate effectively when it comes to policy changes. The mantra seems to be always, ‘it’s on the database’. We also hold that the language of theft and fraud in relation to using email is draconian and wrong-headed. This has already been pointed out by a national Napo representative but to no avail.
Members have contacted Napo to complain. One member complained directly to Barrie Crook, describing the action taken as ‘arrogant’ and ‘disrespectful’ of him as an individual as well as his union. He added that such arrogant actions contribute to poor relations between management and the workforce and contributes to poor morale.
Interestingly in the same briefing we are told that some 229 members of staff completed the staff survey – that is a figure lower than Napo’s membership and yet the chief officer sees justification in disregarding protocols and imposing a policy. Incidentally the staff survey may well run to a 1000 pages but a summary report is already published and we say that it should be shared with staff forthwith instead of waiting for ‘key messages’ to be determined. The 2004 survey never saw the light of day.
Posted by Hampshire at 08:50 PM | Comments (0)
DON'T SHOOT THE MESSENGER - MISMANAGING CHANGE: INTERGRATION OF UNPAID WORK
It was Sophocles who first said: ‘don't shoot the messenger', but history repeats itself endlessly. The integration of unpaid work could have been far better managed. Going back over a year Napo and Unison complained about the situation. Below is a document that can be downloaded which reproduces the relevant extracts from the minutes of the TU/HR meetings. Here is an extract of a submission we made to the JNCC last August (the subject matter was poor consultation with the unions):
'An example: In 2005 discussions were held, including union representatives, about the implementation of Offender Management. After several meetings the work was referred to smaller groups, on which there was no union representation. In 2007 Unpaid Work Officers were informed that they would become generic PSO Offender Managers, a job that is significantly different from the work that they have done in the past. The manner in which it has been implemented has caused immense concern: experienced members of staff have resigned as a result. Once Napo and Unison became aware of these changes we asked for a dedicated meeting to discuss issues arising from the change: changes to job descriptions for both UW Officers and PSO OMs, a new job evaluation for these posts, training, discussion of role boundary issues.. As a major organisational change this should have been discussed with unions before implementation. It appears that the process of implementation is not being managed on a whole area basis but is at different stages throughout the area, causing concern and confusion for staff. A meeting, at the instigation of the unions, is to take place in the near future to discuss these changes; prior consultation would have prevented what appears to be piecemeal and ineffective implementation of these changes.'
Eventually HPA get around to addressing the issues. A report was commissioned, but thus far we have only seen a letter 'summarising' the report. (We have asked for a copy of the full report and will pursue this under freedom of information if need be) Anyway, the summary has a few swipes at the Unions - being obstructive - which we reject as groundless. The Unions were in fact seeking to hold HPA accountable and make the intergration into offender management actually 'fit for purpose. There wasn't even an implementation plan. Here is Napo’s response to HPA’s misrepresentation of events. This is the text of a letter we sent today to HPA:
‘A copy of your letter to the PSOs in the South-West has been forwarded to me, and I must express my disappointment at statements you have included with regard to the Unions. I was the Napo Representative involved in any discussions that took place, and therefore best able to refute these claims.
There were no discussions with the unions in relation to the planned integration before the process took place. We were informed at HR meetings about management intentions, and it was at our request, after some delay, that a meeting took place in September 2007 to discuss issues raised by union members. Agreement was reached on a number of issues; I am not aware that this agreement has been implemented.
Members raised concerns after inadequate briefing sessions had been delivered in several areas; we are concerned that there is no evidence that the process of integration was properly planned, nor that an audit of staff skills was undertaken so that training could be provided. In fact you have stated in your response that a more detailed operational plan was needed; this relates not only to the South-West but also to the South-East. It is not therefore true that the result of integration has been unsatisfactory only in the South-West as compared with other divisions. I have raised the issue of Crams training for PSOs on several occasions; no adequate response has been given to these requests.
You have suggested that the Unions have been obstructive to the process of integration; I would welcome some evidence of this conclusion as my perception has been that the Unions attempted on many occasions to enter into a dialogue with HPA with regard to integration but were excluded from any discussion.
The integration of UW and OM was not effectively planned and has left many staff feeling deskilled and demoralised. It is for these reasons that the Unions have attempted to clarify the process and ensure that staff receive the support they need. The Unions have not, at any time, attempted to derail the process, but have represented their members concerns during a difficult period.’
Posted by Hampshire at 06:39 PM | Comments (0)
June 30, 2008
WORK TO RULE - AN EXAMPLE
Managers and specialists at telecom operator BT in the UK are switching off their blackberries and PCs and working strictly to their 36-hour week in a dispute over pay and equal pay.
13,000 Connect members are taking industrial action short of a strike - a work to rule - from Tuesday 24 June.
The members will work strictly to contractual hours, won’t work weekends or travel outside their working hours, won’t offer to be flexible or take part in informal on-call rotas
The call for action was approved by a meeting of BT members in Nottingham following reports on the failure of talks to break the deadlock. A pay rise to cover 2007-2008, equal pay and changes to pay differentials, progression and ranges are all covered by Connect’s claim
Activists were briefed on latest developments in the union’s Pay Fair campaign and how the action will be carried locally.
“Once the 36 hours are up we expect our members to go home and switch off their blackberries, mobile phones and PCs,” said a Connect spokeswoman.
“We estimate that the contractual hours will be used by Thursday in a normal week and BT will learn just how much flexibility and long hour working they normally get for our members.”
Posted by Hampshire at 09:44 PM | Comments (0)
BRANCH CONTACT DETAILS
Please Note: first point of contact for
Representation - Tina Williams.
Health and Safety - Peter Wade
Membership - Trevor Emans
Edridge - Gerry Kennelly
Further details can be downloaded here.
Posted by Hampshire at 06:53 PM | Comments (0)
June 29, 2008
MORE THREATS TO PAY
On the 24th June Napo representatives met with the chief officer and the director of human resources to discuss the implementation of the ECU agreement which only came into force a matter of months ago.
At the meeting the chief officer stated that because of budget issues he was going to introduce ‘proposals’ concerning travel allowances, including car parking, that if implemented would mean that a proportion of staff will lose money. He said that this would have to happen if redundancies over the next three years were to be avoided.
It was a similar message when he last proposed changes to travel allowances. On that occasion there was a substantial budget surplus carried over into the next financial year.
Of course, with any spending there is an issue of priorities and this organisation, for example, has seen fit to recently spend our money on consultants to train managers, despite having its own training department. It would appear that this is deemed more important than the take home pay of staff. (We will find out and let you know how much has been paid to Ad Esse.)
Napo will resist any plans that could result in staff losing money, but it could mean, depending on the details of the proposals, some form of collective action.
We send this note to advise members that once we receive details we will call an emergency branch meeting.
Posted by Hampshire at 02:16 PM | Comments (0)
PRISON WORKS?
Ricky Gervais welcomed Nelson Mandala's impeccable record since release: “And they say prison doesn’t work.”
Posted by Hampshire at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)