New edition of Branch Lines now available
The Summer 2017 edition of Branch Lines is now available for you to download. Printed copies have already been distributed around County Council offices, schools, academies, …
News
WSCC Culture Board: why is UNISON not involved?
Last summer a new chief executive arrived at WSCC, Nathan Elvery. This change at the top has provided challenges to UNISON, not least as a …
Parking and staff travel
Parking has become a thorny issue at WSCC and for good reason. When WSCC closed satellite buildings to place staff in large hubs, it was …
Capita contract: which way forward?
There is no doubt that when WSCC outsourced 600 staff in 2012 to Capita, things could not be said to have gone to plan. In 2015 the branch commissioned external research into the Capita contract about service quality and the treatment of staff and this put evidence on the table. …
Children’s social workers’ pay to increase
WSCC, like many other local authorities, is facing a major crisis of children’s social worker recruitment and retention. As well as having concerns about the …
Overpayments
The branch has continued to support members who have been overpaid because of administrative or other errors in calculating their pay. This can happen in …
Local FE college mergers update
Our rep Karen Fisher reports of an ‘inauspicious beginning’ at Northbrook College, Worthing: “The Greater Brighton Metropolitan College (‘The Met’ – formerly Northbrook and Brighton …
Membership is on the up
We’re delighted to report that membership of UNISON West Sussex is at its highest level ever. We have a total number of 5,398 full members plus 611 retired members. It’s a full-member increase of 4.8% on our 2012 membership numbers, with significant numbers recently joining from schools. This is in spite …
IPEH changes: UNISON supports members
Over 500 staff working in prevention and early help (IPEH) services for children and families were re-organised by West Sussex County Council for April. Although redundancies …
Maternity changes
The branch has helped West Sussex County Council change its approach to redundancy policy for those on maternity leave. Prior to this, if managers decided …