UNISON Birmingham Branch
UNISON Birmingham Branch |
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For those who received their contract in the first batch sent out dated 1 November, and received on approximately Saturday 10 November, the deadlines for submitting the Stage 1 Appeal Form are :
Start of Appeal Period Friday 21 December 2007
End of Appeal Period Friday 31 March 2008
Please note the end of the ten week period has been extended by one month at the insistence of the UNISON Branch. If you receive your contract after the first batch, your appeal period will start 6 weeks after you receive your contract and end 10 weeks later (ie 16 weeks after receipt of contract). Our advice to all members is to let your manager know in writing that you intend to appeal, within the 6 week 'consideration' period. This is not strictly necessary under the appeals procedure but would be good practice and will give us some information on how many appeals to expect. For Collective Appeals, we need to organise groups that wish to collectively appeal. Please contact the branch for a form to give us details on the collective groups and your lead organisers.
UNISON Birmingham Branch have produced a simple to use spreadsheet to help
with developing your appeal. The Excel spreadsheet contains the definitions
for every level of every factor. You can insert what you think the right level
should be and the spreadsheet will show you the new definition you must give
evidence that you meet. The spreadsheet also calculates the extra points you
will gain.
Full details of all the national guidance on the thirteen factors and their
different levels are contained in a document produced by the National Joint
Council Employer side
The Council has buckled to pressure from thousands of Freedom of Information requests and recognised that they have to provide information on the job evaluation for those considering appealing. They now say they will provide information on the JE process for appeals. We believe that you should formally request :
Let us know if this information is being refused.
A number of members have reported that they have had to wait several weeks past the due date for JEQ information to be supplied by the council's Pay and Grading team. UNISON Birmingham branch Single Status negotiators have reported:
"SSDT have confirmed that delays in JEQ info provision should be added to the appeal deadline date. We should be advisingf members to concisely record the date they request the info and record it securely"
Branch negotiators met with Councillor Rudge and senior HR managers recently to ask for a guarantee that scores will not be reduced as a result of an appeal. We are concerned about HR advice to the Appeals Panel members that they can review the score of any factor, not just those the member has appealed on. It is therefore possible for the Panel to 'correct' an error in the original job evaluation for a factor which the job holder has not provided any evidence for. We believe at the very least, if the Appeals Panel or job analyst wants to question a new factor, the job holder should be asked if they wish to provide evidence to justify the original level.
Further advice on Appeals will be added to this web-page shortly.