Same job, different council- pay advice needed please

gizmo111

sangie595 wrote: »

In local authorities it's four weeks. An employee can have a break up to four weeks between jobs without breaking continuity of employment.

where do you get this from? Every person I have employed has had to have no break, 7 days under special circumstances, please post link to this information.

gizmo111

sangie595 wrote: »

You must speak to the manager - you never talk to HR. But as I said, do be cautious in your approach. You already have a higher grade, you have a line of work facing terrible cuts - you do not want your first impression to be money-grabbing. These are not things you are entitled to - so you are asking and not telling. Public sector, at the level you are talking about, do not tend to negotiate, and less so now. And whilst such conversations ought to be private, they aren't always, and the impression you set could be with co-workers and not just managers or HR.

Talk to the manager - don't worry about what impression you are making, there are no terrible cuts to social work posts, over 30% are vacant and 20 % filled by locums nationwide - still leaving over 10% that cannot be filled by anyone.

The worst that will happen is they say no!
Are you relocating or just moving to a neighbouring LA?

megc_2

Thanks again. Gizmo111 I will be relocating, to an authority about 40miles away. I am currently renting privately and will continue doing so, while we save up for enough of a deposit to get on the proverbial property ladder.

gizmo111

So is the LA you are going to offering any relocation package? PM me with where you are coming going to?

sangie595

gizmo111 wrote: »

where do you get this from? Every person I have employed has had to have no break, 7 days under special circumstances, please post link to this information.

I suggest that you look up your national agreements then. There is nothing at all about 7 days or special circumstances. It is the reason why local authority employees are required to repay redundancy pay if they obtain another local authority position within four weeks of redundancy. Because they retain continuous employment rights from one local authority to another for a period of four weeks. And you cannot be both redundant and have continuous employment.

gizmo111

sangie595 wrote: »

I suggest that you look up your national agreements then. There is nothing at all about 7 days or special circumstances. It is the reason why local authority employees are required to repay redundancy pay if they obtain another local authority position within four weeks of redundancy. Because they retain continuous employment rights from one local authority to another for a period of four weeks. And you cannot be both redundant and have continuous employment.

But she is not being made redundant she is moving from one to the other voluntarily, all HR and Unison advice I have had in 4 LA's I have worked in the past 12 years has been there cannot be break of any time to continue pension and service rights. Special circs were all around maternity but don't affect me.
If you know different then please share the information ......

dippy3103

sangie595 wrote: »

If the rate is higher then the normal practice would be that you start at the bottom of the new grade, or at the "matching" spinal point if there is overlap. Your progression within a band is not a protected characteristic of the agreements if you are moving on to a higher band. The grades themselves - the spinal column points - are in fact a nationally agreed structure. What is paid for a specific role is a matter for job evaluation, and job evaluation is not a national structure.

That's what happened when I moved from one council to another- I kept my continuity of service & went onto the new councils pay band (I negotiated to start a spine point or two higher).

sangie595

gizmo111 wrote: »

But she is not being made redundant she is moving from one to the other voluntarily, all HR and Unison advice I have had in 4 LA's I have worked in the past 12 years has been there cannot be break of any time to continue pension and service rights. Special circs were all around maternity but don't affect me.
If you know different then please share the information ......

Funny that, I am a Unite regional official for local authorities. And I know it. Maybe HR don't tell the truth? Not that I can imagine HR ever lying about something. Especially not if believing it in the employers favour. Redundancy was an example of the application - it counts for any transfer between local authorities within a four week period. I can't account for why Unison don't know it though.

I don't disagree with your statistics about the lack of social workers though. There is only one problem with statistics - they also don't exactly tell the truth. Because it is all very well saying that vacancies are unfilled. Is that just because there is a shortage (although agency social workers are available in copious amounts, but then they get paid a lot more, don't they? Which may explain why people would prefer to go to agency work post qualifying - it's more lucrative work).

But what about the other side of the story? There isn't a UK local authority that didn't come in over budget last year, or the year before that, or actually, for a long time now. And not by a short margin either. If those "fictional posts" were filled, there would be no money to pay them. They may be necessary posts. I happen to think they are. But they are unaffordable posts. So I would be interested to hear more about your views that there is no funding crisis in social care, because none of the unions (including Unison) nor the LGA appear to agree with you. They must have got something dreadfully wrong in their analysis so you really need to set them all straight.