Following the ‘insourcing’ of the ‘MASH’ service from Capita due to concerns over children’s safeguarding , we’re pleased to see more services are now being insourced.
These are mostly in HR and include the following:
- HR Management Advice (excluding schools)
- Job Evaluation
- Recruitment
- Learning and Development (Training) Administration
- Personal Administration (PA) Service
- Supervised Contact Administration
These services will be moved back to the council with staff TUPE transfers taking effect from 1 February.
There are issues with the way some of these services have performed or have been managed by Capita since 2012. It is ever-clearer that the Capita contract has been a tortuous experience for both Capita staff who provide and WSCC staff who use the services.
We welcome the improvement of the HR function by insourcing parts back from Capita who were unable to deliver an adequate service through their staffing model. The staff were not to blame, but the company was. UNISON saw close up how our members going through HR processes suffered because of this, the time the council had to invest to manage and correct issues, and the impact on WSCC managers who sometimes could not get timely or consistent advice.
UNISON believes even more services should be insourced, particularly those related to schools’ support. These have an even greater impact than non-schools as they deal with more staff. We welcome the decisiveness by the council in insourcing what they have, but believe they have more to do before the dead weight of this 10-year contract is lifted.
For those staff being TUPEd back to the council, it will be good news if they are assimilated onto WSCC’s terms and conditions of employment. The union is involved in negotiating the best deal for staff during the TUPE process. For any worker in the above services, now is a good time to join UNISON.