Beecroft report

Most media interviews I have dealt with over last two days have focussed on the Beecroft Report. This is the report, commissioned by David Cameron, by venture capitalist Adrian Beecroft proposing that employment regulations are blocking Britain’s economic growth.
 

You have to start by wondering why Beecroft was commissioned to write this report in the first place. As an asset stripping venture capitalist he knows plenty about wrecking jobs, but no obvious qualifications in creating or maintaining them. Of course he is a major Tory donor and the man behind Wonga loans, who have just been warned by the OFT over threatening debt collecting tactics. No doubt the next ‘red tape’ he will be recommending that the government get rid of.

 

The report itself appears to have gone through some political revisions. The draft version published by the Telegraph has some significant variations from the version hurriedly published by the government last night. Three proposals were removed after being submitted to No10 before it was sent to the Business Department. They called for the Government to delay plans to introduce flexible working for parents, to abandon proposals to allow all workers to request flexible working, and to remove regulations surrounding the employment of children. Clearly even David Cameron thought forcing children up chimneys again was a step too far!

 

Then the report had some difficulty within the ConDem coalition. Vince Cable described it in short as “bonkers”. The longer version was, “Businesses are much more concerned about access to finance or weak demand than they are about this issue.” Nick Clegg took a similar line with "I don't support them and I never have. I've not seen any evidence that creating industrial-scale insecurity amongst millions of workers is a way of securing new jobs.”

 

So much for the politics, how would the plan for compensated no fault dismissals impact on the workplace? Essentially employers will end up paying more directly in terms of workers taking more complex (uncapped compensation) discrimination claims which carry a higher potential legal and reputational risk and indirectly through the continued acceptance of inefficient management practices.

The CIPD's Katerina Rüdiger puts it clearly, “Headline grabbing proposals which call for making it easier to 'sack the slackers' are at risk of masking the real question we should be asking: why are so many UK workers still underperforming? The reason is not stringent employment legislation - indeed the UK has one of the most de-regulated labour markets across OECD countries - but a crisis of management and leadership skills.”

The Channel 4 fact check gives a good summary of the evidence, something completely missing from the Beecroft report. They conclude the reports main assertion, “just doesn’t stack up, according to those who have researched the matter.”

Only bad ineffective employers believe in hiring and firing at will. Even the government’s own survey shows that only 6% of employers regard employment rights as a barrier to growth. We have some of the weakest employment laws in Europe and these proposals will do nothing to encourage confidence and growth. David Cameron should spend more time talking to those who understand the world of work, and less to his dinner party chums.

Police Staffs - when the facts change......

I was in Parliament yesterday for the justice debate on police staff cuts. The debate was on a Scottish Labour motion that called on “the Scottish Government to undertake an independent audit of cuts implemented or planned to civilian posts and report the outcome to the Parliament.”


1000 police staff posts have already gone and up to 3000 more are planned to go following the introduction of the new national police force. As a consequence police officers are already being taken off operational duties to cover these posts. If we carry on this way up to 2000 police officers could be spending all or part of their time doing jobs they are not qualified to do, at twice the cost.

As the madness of this policy has been pointed out to the Scottish Government by just about every police organisation, why do they persist in digging this deep hole?

The SNP came up with a manifesto commitment to put 1000 extra police officers on the beat. Fine populist line and actually could have been achieved without employing any additional officers. Just take the legions of police officers who are already doing police staff jobs and put them back into operational roles. But no, instead they then turned the extra 1000 posts into a mantra of 17234 police officers in Scotland. Even this, in the budgetary circumstances of the time, could have been managed. Grossly inefficient, but probably doable.

The problem is they have stuck with this into the new national force and slapped on a huge savings target based on a dodgy outline business plan. The full business plan won’t even be ready until the Bill is passed. This means you can’t make savings from the 75% of the budget spent on police officers, you have to make almost all the savings from the 15% of the budget that pays for police staffs.

SNP MSP’s yesterday were very keen to talk about what’s happening in England. Yes, we all agree that the Westminster cuts are wrong and that probably applies to policing cuts in England as well. Although it has to be said that English forces have a better track record on modernising staffing structures than most Scottish forces. The ‘traditions and cultures’ as one MSP put it are not an excuse for one Scottish force having a third of its staff civilianised (equivalent to England) and another only a quarter. Some cultures are outdated or just wrong and need to be challenged.

If there is a comparison with England it is in the approach of the PM to the economy. “I am not for turning”, even when circumstances change, could equally be applied to the Scottish Government on this issue. Even the Defence Secretary changed course on carrier aircraft, “when the facts changed”. The facts, budget and national police force have changed here - so that should be the cue for a change of policy.

The rapid programme of de-civilianisation in Scotland is not always understood by those outside the police family. So let me illustrate with a recent story told to me, not by a UNISON Steward, but by a senior detective. He was involved in a fraud investigation and he asked for a forensic accountant and a clerk to help with the number crunching that is essential in a fraud case. None were available and instead he was sent a sergeant and a constable. He explained the task and returned the following day to find the two officers sitting in front of a computer with a pad of paper and a calculator. When he asked why they weren’t using a spreadsheet, they explained that they didn’t know how to do that. This simple data entry task would have been done by a civilian clerk in a fraction of the time and at less than half the salary. Not to mention the small matter of getting a successful conviction.

The issue boils down to the concept of Best Value as included in the Police & Fire Reform Bill. The Justice Committee report quotes my key argument on this point:

“260. A large number of witnesses believe that there needs to be a balanced workforce, with duties being undertaken by the most appropriate person regardless of whether that be a police officer or a civilian member of staff.214 Mr Watson said—

“In five or six years, we will be sitting round a table like this with Audit Scotland, who will say that the situation is ridiculous because we are paying police officers, at great cost, to do jobs that they are not qualified to do. We should not wait until then. Let us take the opportunity of the establishment of a new police force to consider the right balance between police officers and civilians.”

The Cabinet Secretary didn’t even bother to explain yesterday in his summing up why he was opposed to an independent audit. He knows full well what it would find. When the facts change, clever politicians change with them.

Council elections

As the dust settles on last week’s council elections time for a few reflections.


Lets start with the election results. The main story of the election was the collapse of the Liberal Democrat vote. Last year, the SNP gained most from the Liberal Democrats’ collapse, this time the distribution was much more even. The trick in an STV election system is getting the number of candidates right. At the last election, the SNP had 83% of its candidates elected, but in this election it got 69% in. Scottish Labour, improved its election rate from 67% to 79%, suggesting it was better at gauging its own support, or just more realistic. I think John Curtice’s summary is about right;

“Overall, there was evidently hardly a cigarette paper between Labour and the SNP, as compared with the long run of Scottish electoral history that still represents a considerable achievement by the Nationalists. But as compared with where we were just 12 months ago, it is difficult to avoid the impression that it does not represent something of a setback. Certainly, as compared with the position a week ago, it is Labour, not the SNP, who have gained most from this latest verdict from the ballot box.”

There was an attempt by some commentators to rain on Labour’s parade. But no amount of number crunching can hide the fact that this was a significant comeback from last year. Politics is about momentum and comparisons with 2011 are more important than 2007. I thought Johann Lamont’s interviews over last weekend hit just the right tone. This was a good result, but Labour shouldn’t get carried away - there is much more to do both politically and organisationally.

Overall turnout was low, but not as low as had been feared and higher than the 32% in England. The media coverage was mixed at national level and limited by balanced coverage at local level. De-selected councillors and twitter musings do not make an election. However, at the least the debate was not totally lost in national issues as it was when held on the same day as parliamentary elections.

UNISON Scotland has long argued for council elections to be decoupled to allow for a focus on local government. In fact it was one of the few times we have supported a Tory Member’s Bill. I recall a meeting with Brian Monteith (when he was an MSP) at which he exclaimed his pleasure at this rare occurrence, to which I responded that we had many more policies, such as public ownership, that we could work on together. He didn’t sound too enthusiastic!

The number of female councillors marginally increased from 22% to 24.3%, still well below the 40% in England. Scottish Labour’s positive action programme did at least deliver a decent increase in female councillors from 17% to 26%, demonstrating again that positive action does work.

No joy for the fascists with the BNP (Britannica) & (Scottish)NF vote falling yet again to tiny proportions. Only nine votes in one ward, typically 20 to 30 votes. The austerity rise of fascism in France and Greece thankfully not translating into Scotland.

Post election the horse trading starts, and while not finalised everywhere, there has been a remarkable level of change in the leadership of Scotland’s local authorities. The main beneficiaries have been Scottish Labour who look like leading most of Scotland’s councils. Iain MacWhirter claims “It’s all about tribalism”. This view is a bit naive and simply ignores the consequences of the STV system. Naïve because it is inevitable that parties who are the main contestants in an area will be a little bruised and therefore less willing to engage with their main opponents. The personal always counts in politics and relationships with councillors from smaller parties are often better.

It is also a simple fact that the outcome in many Scottish councils are large Labour and SNP groups and the only way of running the council is an agreement, formal or otherwise, with smaller parties. In these circumstances a Labour/SNP deal would leave the council without an effective opposition. The usual cybernat nonsense about “direction from English bosses” wasn’t even the case when local government matters were in the UK Labour rulebook. After last year’s devolution of the rulebook, coalition approvals are now firmly the responsibility of the Scottish Labour Party’s Local Government Committee.

I do agree with Iain that coalition deals with the SNP make much more sense in policy terms and they would be my personal preference. The Edinburgh deal makes a lot of sense as does the arrangements in East Renfrewshire and Highland. I would predict that these will not be the only ones, depending on the outcome of negotiations. However, the electoral arithmetic in many councils limits the opportunities for such arrangements.

What we are seeing in coalition agreements is a real focus on jobs, apprenticeships, poverty, inequality, housing and the living wage. Being in power when budgets are being slashed may be something of a poisoned chalice, but to pinch a climate change term, mitigation is as important as adaptation.

So while there is an element of tribalism in all parties, in my experience this is rarely the determining factor in cutting coalition deals. The forthcoming referendum may be factor in some councillors views, but the overall approach is far more pragmatic. Getting as much of your manifesto implemented as possible, so you can deliver for the communities you seek to serve.

Workers Memorial Day

Today is International Workers Memorial Day and I have been speaking at the North Lanarkshire TUC event at the Summerlee memorial. 

Remember the Dead, Fight for the Living is the slogan for International Workers Memorial Day (IWMD). The purpose of today is to remember those who have been needlessly killed, injured, or made ill by their work. But perhaps more importantly, it is also about using this human tragedy to strengthen the campaign for safe and healthy work. 

If work is not organised properly, or risks are not managed, it can kill you, injure you or give you an illness that may be with you for the rest of your life.

The number of workers actually killed at work last year in the UK was 171. However this is less than 1 per cent of the number killed by work. Every single year, over 8,000 people die of cancers that are caused by their work. Another 4,000 die from lung disease. 800 people are killed on the roads while working and 7–8,000 deaths from heart or circulatory problems caused by work

Add these up and the figure is already well over 20,000. Many experts put the real figure as much higher. And it’s not only deaths. Last year a staggering 1.9 million people were suffering from an illness that was caused or made worse by their work.

The UK government claims that Britain is the safest place to work because it comes out near the top of the league when looking only at immediate fatalities. This is because they have closed down swathes of manufacturing and heavy engineering more than most comparable countries. If you compare deaths caused by work, or ill-health, then Britain comes 20th out of the 34 OECD nations.

All these deaths and injuries were avoidable if employers took the proper precautions

Despite these statistics health and safety is under threat. The UK Government believes that health and safety is a burden on business. Cameron described it as a “monster”. It wants to: get rid of at least half of all existing health and safety regulations, cut inspections and enforcement of the law. It is also seeking to make it more difficult to get compensation in England. We are not exempt from this risk with charges rising to access justice in the Scottish courts and the Gill and now Taylor reviews.  

Numerous reviews undertaken by or for the government, on the whole find that the health and safety system: is not a burden, is actually doing a good and much needed job, and where there is a problem, it tends to be one of perception only. However, the government ignores the reviews and continues to peddle the myths and nonsense aided and abetted by the right wing media. 

The UK Government is cutting the HSE budget by 35 per cent over the next three years. This means increasing charges and cutting services, including its valuable information line. The HSE admits that the cuts will lead to “lower level of enforcement and a consequent decrease in health and safety standards throughout Great Britain, with ensuing costs to society.” Local authority cuts are having a similar impact on their role in safety enforcement.

These are costs that are daily mitigated by trade unions. Workplaces that have trade union safety representatives and safety committees have half the serious injuries than those without. A government report said that safety representatives save society between £181m and £578m each year as a result of lost time reduction from occupational injuries and work-related illnesses of between 286,000 and 616,000 days. Yet the government is trying to cut down on the amount of time that trade union representatives can spend doing their job. 

At UNISON Scotland we support extensive legal action and recover £millions of damages for our members. But we also use every single case to highlight how the incident could have been avoided and seek to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Prevention is always better than damages.

The trade union movement believes that those who are injured, made ill, disabled, or even killed by poor health and safety at work deserve more respect. As do the families left behind. 

So on this day it has never been more important for trade unions to stand together to defend the right to work in safety. Yes, remember the dead, but fight like hell for the living!

I would also recommend this short film produced for Hartlepool TUC. And this poem by UNISON member and poet, David E.Siddon

OUR BLOOD OILS

Our blood oils the gears of industry
The silent masses that none can see.

Of corners cut that stilled our hearts beat
For the expedient, healthy, balance sheet.
What of loss of parent, partner, child or friend?
All for a share-holders annual dividend.
We are the acceptable loss, the ones that fall
Because its as far as is reasonably possible.
So expose the lie, expunge the pain
And fight that we may not die in vain.
In our struggle, brother, sister, never cease
That the silent masses may rest in peace.
Your vigilance kept down the endless years
Lest we forget what it is that oils the gears.

 

Delivering Public Services That Work

'Delivering Public Services That Work' is the latest book on using systems thinking in a public service context by John Seddon and his team at Vanguard.

John Seddon is a big critic of the Whitehall-inspired initiatives, backed up by think-tanks, consultants, lobbyists and politicians. The top down ideas-factory driven by ideology rather than common sense. As he describes it, present anyone in this ideas-factory with evidence of solutions being delivered on the ground and you're met by: "very interesting, but I have an unproven idea that I believe will work better".  The end result is £millions wasted on crazy schemes, that only make the consultants who drive them richer, at the expense of service delivery.

His 2008 book 'Systems Thinking in the Public Sector" is one of those books that screams common sense at you. I found myself saying "I have seen that" on almost every page. His case studies, particularly on Housing Benefit, illustrate how systems all too commonly simply generate 'failure demand' - work generated because the system doesn't work. You see it so often in call centres and shared services where failure is just passed around. He argues instead that what has to happen is for the right service to be given to the right person first time. It's cheaper, public satisfaction rises and staff morale improves because they are starting and finishing the job. Not getting grief for the failure.

This new book, edited by Charlotte Pell, brings together a number of new case studies to illustrate the approach. Police, hospitals and local authorities engaging those who have real knowledge and experience of the service to design sensible systems. Putting staff back in charge, or as Pell puts it, "someone who has the authority and expertise to understand what is going on and treat customers as human beings, not as individual transactions".

John Seddon's chapter in the book entitled 'Shared Services - A No Brainer?' - should be compulsory reading for those wedded to this approach. Particularly those in Scotland who have already wasted taxpayer cash finding out that this doesn't work. He is very critical of the industrialisation inherent in shared services, arguing for, "a better approach: placing the human expertise required to solve peoples problems at the place where they meet the service provider, usually locally". 

This approach fits in much better with the Scottish model of public service delivery. It is reflected in our own recent joint publication with APSE 'The Front Line Starts Here'. Designing services from the bottom up was also championed by the Christie Commission. However, it is not yet fully understood by many public service managers and politicians whose first reaction to change is to grab a consultant from the ideas-factory school of thought. My advice is to read this book - you will certainly learn about a better way to organise public services.

Devo Left

Yesterday at the STUC we launched the Red Paper Collective folder  'Power to Scotland's People', or as I prefer, Devo Left for short. The full paper was published in the Morning Star.

The independence referendum debate so far has largely focused on process and powers. There has been little debate on what extended devolution or independence is actually for. This paper seeks to start that debate from a socialist perspective.  

There is no point having new powers if we are simply going to swop Neo-Liberal unionism for Neo-Liberal independence. As I have argued in another posting, the track record on actually using existing devolved powers to promote social justice is not strong. So would it be any different with the economy or other powers?

Under independence or extended devolution big business in Scotland remains dependent on City institutions, reflecting the long established economic and monetary union with the rest of the UK. A situation that the SNP does not even seek to change with plans to retain the pound and EU membership and therefore outsourcing much of an independent Scotland's monetary and fiscal powers. The limited aim of shifting jobs from England by cutting Corporation Tax, Scotland the tax haven, isn't much of a socialist vision!

Devo-Plus and Devo-Max are also predicated on either cutting public spending or meeting existing levels. American levels of taxation will not fund Scandinavian levels of public services, so talk of following a Nordic model is meaningless unless we grasp this essential reality.

Devo-Left argues that the the options so far miss the crucial dimension of class politics and the redistribution of income and wealth. Power for a purpose should be the driving the constitutional debate and this paper at least starts that debate.

Pensions Governance

Several meetings this week have touched on governance of pension schemes and tomorrow UNISON Scotland is supporting the Just Banking conference in Edinburgh.

In our private or not for profit sector pension schemes governance is covered by the Pension Act and the subsequent codes of practice that require, among other matters, that at least one-third of trustees are member nominated. That’s not to say that there are no problems. In the current pensions environment being a trustee can be challenging and a quick glance through the Pensions Regulator web site highlights how pension governance can go very wrong.

In the public sector many members are in pay-as-you-go schemes that don’t have funds and therefore governance is a matter of regulation. However, the biggest pension scheme in Scotland is the Local Government Pension Scheme (Scotland) (LGPS) with assets of nearly £20bn administered by 11 funds. While it is called the ‘local government’ scheme almost a third of members are employed by organisations outwith councils, including private, voluntary and other statutory bodies. These funds look and operate in a similar way to private sector schemes with contributions from employers and employees that are invested in order to meet scheme liabilities.

The big difference is the way the schemes are governed. The LGPS is probably the only funded scheme in the EU not to have effective and statutory member representation. In the main they are administered by a pensions committee made up almost exclusively of employer representatives i.e. councillors from the local authorities covered by the fund. The funds are also, in most cases, closely linked to the organisation of a lead council in a way that would not be acceptable in a private pension scheme.

There has been some progress in improving the governance of the LGPS in Scotland. In April 2011 guidance was issued to all funds that set out compliance standards against which funds are to measure their governance arrangements. This came out of the 2008 agreement on the new LGPS in Scotland. However, the latest progress report indicates that even the modest requirements of this guidance have not been fully implemented by every fund.

Most funds do now at least have consultative panels that include representatives of scheme members and in the best funds these operate well, engaging members and supporting them with training and access to papers. Most funds have also made a real effort to communicate with scheme members.

The slowest progress is over having representatives of scheme members as voting members of the fund decision making structures. This is recognised across Europe as essential for good governance and transparency and as I explained above is a statutory requirement in private sector schemes in the UK. Equally, there is no provision in the legislation that members serving on these committees have to make investment decisions in the best interests of beneficiaries or address potential conflict of interests with the councils that make up the fund. UNISON believes that the current arrangements sit outside the requirements of European law, particularly Directive 2003/41/EC, known as the IORP Directive.

It is sometimes argued that because LGPS members contributions and benefits are set by law they bear no risk from poor investment and governance decisions. This is no longer the case because the UK and Scottish Government has the power to change benefits and are more likely to do this if investment income falls. In addition since 2009 member contributions are subject to ‘cost sharing’ arrangements. In practice there are fewer protections for LGPS members than those in private sector schemes. As the recent pension disputes have shown, trade union strength is the only defence scheme members have against a rapacious government hell bent on undermining quality pension schemes.

Pension fund representation is not simply a moral issue. As David Pitt-Watson said in ‘The New Capitalists’ (2006) – “Pension plan flaws often occur because plan members tend to have little or no representation in the governance of funds. Worse, secrecy makes it difficult for citizen investors to monitor what is being done in their name”. I would argue that the economic power of the LGPS in Scotland is little understood or necessarily deployed in the interests of members or the wider community. Stronger pension governance could provide the basis for a more radical approach. The work done by trade unions in other countries shows us how a different approach can work.

If the banking crisis tells us anything it demonstrates that we need to take greater control and promote more transparency over the financial system. Our pension funds need to be a part of that liberation.