Job Evaluation and Single Status at Birmingham City Council
I am not going to be updating this site any longer and will probably be shutting it down completely fairly soon.
Things have been very quiet for a while with correspondence dropping off and it is not really surprising as I have heard from quite a few that have moved job within BCC and quite a few that have left BCC altogether because of pay cuts and of course we are all in limbo waiting to hear the outcome of our appeals and could be for quite some time.
Also, some of you have been in touch to say you have got your old grade back and that is fantastic news – well done.
Most of the information that was on the site is out in the open now and all the stuff about Gauge, JEQ's, FOI requests and appeals is really out of date now as far as Birmingham is concerned.
If anyone wants any copies of documents etc. or any other information from the site please get in touch. I can still be contacted at the usual e-mail address.
As to what is happening at the present time between the unions and management, well your guess is as good as mine. It isn't over yet of course, I have no idea how things will unfold for losers but I am not optimistic. The lack of communication from our unions to their members over the past few months has been abysmal and extremely disappointing. My own feeling is that it is over with losers as far as the unions are concerned. I could be wrong but if I am right it is not a surprise given the history of Single Status up and down the country since 1997 and the attitude of the unions at a national level to losers. Red circles were an acceptable price to pay, as I was told by a senior national union official a couple of years ago. Unions were always going to struggle, they agreed to this in the first place and all along their hands have been tied by that fact. Rightly, their main concern had been equal pay and getting rid of low pay but their acceptance of what must eventually be hundreds of thousands of staff up and down the country losing pay being an acceptable consequence of Single Status can not be right.
It seems an agreement has been reached to start paying some of this years pay award at long last. Red circles or losers won't be seeing any of it or any back pay either, but remember this isn't perceived by BCC as you getting a pay cut. Could have fooled me.
Thanks to all who have contributed and supplied information, sent me documents, articles, links etc. and thanks for the advice and thanks for the support. When I first started doing this I had absolutely no idea what I was doing or what reaction I would get. The reaction from BCC staff was overwhelmingly a positive one.
Sadly,
the reaction of BCC was to ban this site from BCC staff and talk about disciplinary
action which perhaps says something about it's approach to the implementation of the Pay & Grading review, an approach described in the press as the 'nuclear option'.
Good luck