Supporting our Public Service Workforce through Collective Leadership and Legislation Consultation on a Draft Public Services (Workforce) (Wales) Bill

Transcription

1 Number: WG20093 Wales TUC response to: Welsh Government Consultation Document on Supporting our Public Service Workforce through Collective Leadership and Legislation Consultation on a Draft Public Services (Workforce) (Wales) Bill Date of issue: 28 November 2013 Action required: Responses by 21 February 2014 Date of submission: 25 February 2014 Wales TUC Cymru 1 Cathedral Road Cardiff CF11 9SD Tel/Ffon: /Ebost: wtuc@tuc.org.uk 1

2 INTRODUCTION 1. The Wales TUC welcomes the publication of the Welsh Government s Consultation on Supporting our Public Service Workforce through Collective Leadership and Legislation: Consultation on the Draft Public Services (Workforce) (Wales) Bill. 2. The Wales TUC has long argued for agreements reached at the Workforce Partnership Council to be fully implemented with statutory force. Our view is that any legislation needs to support this. We do recognise that not everything emanating from the Workforce Partnership Council will need to be taken through on this basis but there will be times when agreements must be underpinned by enforcement. 3. We are an organisation that represents over 420,000 workers in Wales through our affiliated trade unions. Those Trades Unions have come together to produce a joint response to this consultation exercise. The joint response demonstrates the importance that we place upon this consultation and recognises the impact it could have on the public sector workforce in the future. 4. We have an unambiguous aim for public services in Wales: to keep them in the hands of the public. The members of our affiliated unions work tirelessly to deliver world-class public services for the people of Wales and it is only by ensuring the workforce are properly protected and engaged that those services will withstand the processes of reorganisation that are going on across the public sector. 5. The First Minister gave a firm commitment to the WTUC Special Conference in November 2010 that: CONTEXT I want to see best practice being shared and delivered across Welsh public services and that includes best practice in employee relations. Engagement, negotiation and agreement not diktat. I want the Welsh way of Government employers and unions working together to seek solutions to be the only way in Welsh public services. And this means sticking to our principles no two tier workforce, no knee jerk outsourcing, commitments to fair terms if transfers take place, and a continued adherence to our workforce code of practice from all sides 6. This consultation document builds on the commitments set out by the First Minister and on the approach taken by the Welsh Government in its recent consultation with regard to reissuing the Code of Practice on Workforce Matters (2 Tier Code). We particularly welcomed the clarification from Lesley Griffiths 2

3 AM that both codes (the 2 Tier Workforce Codes) continue to apply in Wales and should be respected. 7. There are 332,000 people employed in the public sector in Wales and we are fighting hard to keep it that way. However, we recognise that this fight takes place under severe budgetary pressure. In addition to the cuts imposed by the UK Con-Dem coalition since taking office in 2010, the UK Government has announced it plans further cuts in current expenditure between 2015 and These have been reflected in the final Welsh Government budget agreed in December 2013 and are placing pressures upon public service spending that could push our services to breaking point. 8. The capacity of the Welsh Government to protect jobs and services in Wales is made more difficult not only by budget cuts imposed by Westminster since 2010 but also by the inadequacies of the block grant as a result of the Barnett Formula and by the lack of borrowing powers and tax-raising powers available to them. Limited moves to address this have recently been announced. The Wales TUC supports the replacement of Barnett with a formula that reflects the needs of the Welsh people and the devolution of borrowing and tax-raising powers to the Welsh Government. 9. As quoted above, the Wales TUC welcomes the First Minister s continued opposition to knee-jerk outsourcing and he has recently stated that Public services must remain public. Their value lies in their universal availability... We cannot leave that to the market. If we turned public services into commodities, provided them competitively and allocated them according to the ability to pay, we would destroy what we have sought to preserve. That is not my agenda The Wales TUC remains firmly opposed to all public service changes that are driven purely by budget cuts. We understand that there will need to be reform to provide services fit for the twenty first century and our affiliates are ready to help deliver these where it is clear that changes are necessary and not just being made in a response to financial difficulties, rather than service need. 11. While we have a long history of supporting the co-operative movement, we have some nervousness about paragraph 1.13 in the Strategic Framework for the Public Service Workforce in Wales 2 which highlights that the Mutual and Co-operative sector has an increasingly key role to play at a time when the Welsh Government is exploring new and innovative ways of delivering services and improving economic performance. We do not want this exploration to undermine the commitment to public services being delivered by the public sector. Substantial work has been undertaken by a number of our affiliates demonstrating there is no evidence that delivery of public services by mutual or co-operative owned businesses offer any benefits to the taxpayer, community, service users or workforce as an alternative to public services

4 12. The WTUC recommends the March 2012 report from the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) entitled Shared services and collaborative working in a Welsh context: Applying theory to practice which has looked extensively at different governance models for local government and found that there is little support for models of local government that hollow out local councils. The report further recognises that there is a role for local government in acting in a stewardship role for local places and economies, as an arbiter of social justice and in providing public value, but only if it retains a strong core of directly delivered services. This is a view firmly endorsed by the Wales TUC and to be commended to the Welsh Government while it undertakes its reforms in relation to local authority services, including school, further and higher education and social services. The report states that the impact of the approach to shared services on the workforce and on the local economy are key what may appear attractive in terms of the potential to deliver savings or achieve greater efficiencies may have unintended costs and consequences which will have an impact on the local authority as a whole. 13. The proposals set out in the consultation document and the draft Bill originated out of the Green Paper published in the summer of The context in which these proposals sit have significantly altered, most importantly the everdecreasing budget lines available to the Welsh Government. More recently the First Minister has begun a series of Public Services Summits to discuss whether a Wales-wide solution can be found to dealing with the challenges between the public sector employers and the relevant trade unions. 14. The Wales TUC have argued in their initial input to these Summits for the establishment of a time-limited Public Services Staff Commission/er with a statutory remit to deliver in this area and oversee the use of funds. The Wales TUC is looking to explore this option in detail and these discussions could have a bearing on the context of this draft Public Services Workforce (Wales) Bill in the future. 15. Also relevant to this consultation is the recently published report of the Commission on Public Service Governance and Delivery 3. This consultation response does not seek to influence that discussion but the timing of its publication and this consultation is critical. The implementation of the Williams Commission, in whatever form it may come, will have a massive impact on the public sector workforce and, by definition, our affiliates members. Not only will there be an impact upon staff but the success or failure of any recommendations will be dependent upon the workforce and its delivery of them. This is another area where the creation of a time-limited Public Services Staff Commission could play an important role. 16. It is within this context that we submit our response to this current consultation

5 CONSULTATION QUESTIONS Draft Public Services (Workforce) (Wales) Bill: Context and Content (paragraphs in consultation document) Question 1: Are the workforce matters in respect of the proposed guidance powers in the Draft Bill appropriate? Question 2: Are there any other workforce matters which might be included in respect of the proposed guidance powers? 17. The Wales TUC are content that the workforce matters in respect of the proposed guidance powers in the Draft Bill are appropriate subject to one proposed change: Section 2 (1)(a) should be amended to read: Collaboration between public bodies in relation to staffing arrangements, recruitment and retention. 18. We welcome the inclusion of Section 2 (2) The Welsh Ministers may by order amend subsection (1) to add to the list of workforce matters. This clause is crucial to ensure future sustainability of the legislation. Question 3: Are the consultation arrangements for issuing, revising and revoking the statutory guidance appropriate? 19. The Wales TUC has substantial concerns about Section 4 (1), parts (b) and (c). 20. Section 4 (1) (b) currently states that such trade unions as the Welsh Ministers consider appropriate to consult. This wording is not specific enough. We believe that new wording should be drafted to reflect that the Welsh Ministers would consult the trades unions recognised for collective bargaining by the designated public bodies listed in Section 3 (1). 21. We also have major concerns about the inclusion of Section 4 (1) (c) as this subsection has the potential to reopen draft agreements reached by compromise through the Workforce Partnership Council. The intention behind the legislation is to give statutory effect to these agreements as outlined in the consultation document. This sub-section effectively allows these agreements to be opened up for amendment by organisations or individuals not party to the negotiation. The inclusion of 22c undermines the whole premise of the draft Bill by comparing agreements reached by compromise through the Workforce Partnership Council to any statutory guidance issued by Welsh Ministers at any time. To this end, the Wales TUC would like to see it removed from the draft Bill. 5

6 Question 4:Is the list of bodies which may be subject to guidance appropriate? Question 5: Are there any other issues which should be covered in the Draft Bill? 22. The public service organisations to be covered by the Draft Bill are set out in paragraph 35 of the consultation document: Local Authorities NHS Trusts and Local Health Boards; Maintained Schools; Fire and Rescue Authorities; Town and Community Councils; and National Park Authorities 23. The immediate question raised by this list is why both Natural Resources Wales and the Welsh Government Sponsored Bodies were included in the recent consultation on the Code of Practice on Workforce Matters and have been excluded from this list. The Wales TUC would like to see the list extended to include these bodies. 24. We would also like to explore the possibility of including the National Assembly for Wales in both Section 3 (1) and in the Code of Practice on Workforce Matters. 25. The consultation refers in paragraph 36 to the well-rehearsed position with regard to the ONS classification of Non Profit Institutions Serving Households (NPISH) and the financial implications of classifying Further Education Institutions as public sector bodies. 26. The Wales TUC continues to be of the view that we wish to see the inclusion of both FEIs and HEIs in this list. This is a case we have previously made in our response to the WG Green Paper on the Public Sector Workforce and more recently on the 2 Tier Code. 27. The Wales TUC suggests that consideration should be given to including the3 four education consortia in the list of public bodies, as the workforce are public sector employees. However, it is recognised that there may be a need to distinguish the consortia from organizations providing school improvements services. 28. The need to make this distinction arises from the decision of the Welsh Government to accept a recommendation contained in the Hill Report on the future delivery of the education service in Wales that called for the control of the delivery of school improvement services to be removed from local authorities and passed to the consortia. The South East Wales consortium approach to school improvement services was promoted as the preferred model. However, the South East Wales consortium has previously decided to outsource the provision of school improvement services to a private provider. 6

7 29. The Wales TUC is clear that the Two Tier Code should apply to such private providers, but would have concerns about their inclusion in the list of public bodies. Workforce Partnership Council (paragraphs 38 to 50 of the consultation document) Question 6: Would amending the Local Government Scheme help to reinforce the role of the Workforce Partnership Council and the model of social partnership in Wales? 30. The Wales TUC is cautious about this proposal. We recognise that the Welsh Government has felt unable to proceed with legislation to place the Workforce Partnership Council on a statutory footing. However, after elaborating on the importance of the Workforce Partnership Council in paragraphs 38 and 39, paragraphs appear to suggest a hierarchy of organisation in which the Workforce Partnership Council will sit under the Local Government Partnership Scheme and possibly even the Partnership Council for Wales (PCfW) as set out in paragraph Our primary concern with relation to this section relates to the widely-felt view that local government matters already dominate work of the WPC and that this does nothing but reinforce that view. The Wales TUC is absolutely clear that any body established or otherwise with regard to the workforce must be done cross public-sector. 32. The Wales TUC seeks reassurance that both the scheme and any Council are answerable to the First Minister (or his allocated deputy) and relate to ALL public services, not just local government. Question 7: Would issuing an accompanying policy statement help to clarify and reinforce the role of the Workforce Partnership Council? 33. An accompanying policy statement to clarify and reinforce the role of the Workforce Partnership Council will be crucial, not least to set out clearly the relationship between the Partnership Council for Wales (whose membership is very different to the Workforce Partnership Council) and the WPC. 34. Paragraph 48 of the consultation document provides some illustrative text which highlights Partnership working between public service employers, their employees and their recognised trade unions. This text is unacceptable to the Wales TUC. The partnership described is between the public sector employers and the recognised trade unions. Employees are engaged in the partnership through the recognised trade unions; there are no non-union opt-outs. This is all clarified in the Partnership and Managing Change Agreement The Wales TUC would like to see drafts of any policy statement being taken through the Workforce Partnership Council for agreement prior to publication. 7

8 Question 8: Would any other changes help to support the role of the Workforce Partnership Council 36. As explored in paragraphs above, the Wales TUC has been exploring the creation of a Public Services Staff Commission/er through the Public Services Summits. We believe valuable support could be provided to the Workforce Partnership Council from a Commission/er to ensure delivery of agreement or guidance agreed by it and to ensure Strategic Workforce Planning across the public services can be delivered while we all work to mitigate the impact of the current and proposed budget cuts. 37. Another change that would support the role of the Workforce Partnership Council would be the amendment of the Government of Wales Act 2006, Section 73. If the proposal is to use this Section as illustrated in paragraph 44 of the consultation document, then the removal of a specific reference to Local Government Scheme and widening the definition to public services would be extremely helpful. We appreciate that this would require changes by the UK Parliament but, at this stage, a commitment to making this change if an opportunity arose would demonstrate the intentions of the Welsh Government in this regard. Impact Assessments (paragraphs 51-52) Question 9: Do you have any comments on the draft impact assessments? 38. The Wales TUC agrees with the Welsh Government in the RIA which highlights its preferred option as Option 2 introduce a Bill to deliver the policy objectives of an effective public service workforce across Wales. Additional Matters Supplementary: We have asked a number of specific questions. If you have any related issues which you would like to raise please do so. 39. Not at the current time. 8