West Sussex County Council (WSCC) issued a draft parking policy for consultation over the period Wednesday 12th – Wednesday 26th July. UNISON has responded to the proposals after extensive consultation with members and non-members.
Over one thousand staff have contributed to it. We trust that both the council, UNISON members and staff who are not yet members will read it and give full consideration of its contents due to the importance of the issue to all staff and the stability of the services they provide to residents.
A number of issues are covered within the UNISON collective response and these are grouped into themes:
- Concerns about the formulation of the policy
- Concerns about the conduct of the consultation
- Concerns about the proposed parking policy itself
- Counter-proposals, to find a workable solution for all staff
UNISON conducted an online survey:
- 792 staff completed the survey.
- 92% did not agree with the proposed new parking policy; 8% did.
- 71% of respondents were UNISON members; 29% were not yet UNISON members. There was no statistically appreciable difference between the views of UNISON members and non-members.
- 82% of staff were also concerned about the potential for adverse changes to staff travel policies.
- 585 respondents to the survey left qualitative feedback, much of which was extensive.
UNISON also held six member meetings to which non-members were invited, at which verbal feedback was recorded. Two were in Horsham, one in Worthing, one in Crawley, one in Bognor and one in Chichester. Over 200 members and non-members attended these meetings. Given the short notice of only one day before the first meeting, and that only one email was sent to notify members of the dates, UNISON is satisfied with this turnout. UNISON is pleased with the overall response it has received to both the online survey and meetings and believes the data it provides is robust and an authentic representation of the staff view.
We now await the council’s formal response to the UNISON submission and to its own staff survey.
UNISON will communicate further with members when this is known.
Thank you to everyone who took part.