Examination of Witnesses (Questions 109-119)
20 OCTOBER 2004
DR CHRIS
POND OBE AND
MISS ANNE
FOSTER
Q109 Chairman: Good morning. Thank you
very much for coming. As you will find out, this is quite an informal
select committee, so you do not have to regard yourselves as being
subject to a 90 degree interrogation. We are interested in your
views. Perhaps you would begin by explaining who you represent
and the trade union structure and the range of staff which comes
under your umbrella.
Dr Pond: I think all staff in
the House of Commons service are within the umbrella but not staff
of the Metropolitan Police and security services. We have a number
of unions which form together the House of Commons Trade Union
Side: the FDA; Prospect; the PCS; and then, in the Refreshment
Department, the GMB and a consortium of unions representing the
craft grades. They annually elect a president, a post I have held
since 1991.
Q110 Chairman: This is a life job, is
it?
Dr Pond: It is becoming so, Chairman.
Anne is the administrator of the Trade Union Side. She is relatively
new in post. She is a paid post in the House of Commons service
whose job it is to facilitate industrial relations within the
House service.
Q111 Chairman: That is very helpful.
You do not include Members' staff then?
Dr Pond: No, although we do have
a forum which meets to gather together all the representative
organisations, including the SAAC and the unions to which some
Members' staff belong. But, since they are not employees of the
House of Commons Commission, they are not within the House of
Commons Trade Union Side.
Q112 Chairman: That is very helpful.
I wonder if I could begin by asking what has been the overall
impact of the new sitting hours on staff of the House. What proportion
of the House's staff have been working hours which have been determined
wholly or partly by the time at which the House sits? The House
used regularly to sit until midnight or even later. Do staff generally
welcome the earlier rising? That is obviously the big picture
question, but if you could give us a general reaction then my
colleagues will probe in more detail.
Dr Pond: I think on the larger
canvas, as you term it Chairman, revisions of the sitting hours
have been advantageous to most staff but there have been pockets
of difficulty. The main area of difficulty has been that committees
in particular tend now to meet earlier. I would have thought 10
or 15 years ago it would have been very unlikely that I would
have been called to a committee such as this before 10 o'clock
in the morning. Committees used to meet very much in the afternoon.
If the House rises at 10 o'clock, or thereabouts, of course staff
have to stay a bit longer than Members and they may then have
to come in at a very early hour the next morning in order to prepare
all the papers for the Committee—because the Committee meeting,
of course, does not just simply happen.
Q113 Chairman: What is defined as an
early hour?
Dr Pond: This varies. In the case
of a committee meeting at 9 o'clock or 8.55, I think the committee
staff would probably have to be in at about a quarter to eight
at the latest. And there are other services. My attention was
drawn a little while ago to the Vote Office, for instance, where
early morning duty starts at 7.15 in the morning. These are not
necessarily early times by the standard of life outside, but of
course they are difficult to cope with especially if you have
a family with such things as school runs and wives and partners
and husbands and so on whose working patterns also have to be
accommodated. I think one of the comments we have had is that,
although the hours were designed to be more family friendly—and
to some extent they have been more family friendly for Members;
they have also been more family friendly for a number of staff—there
are some staff who have been very adversely affected by the same
move. I would not like to give the Committee the impression that
the staff are in any way resistant or Luddite about the new hours:
they are not. We gladly try to fit in with whatever the House
wants. From the point of view of the unions, of course, there
are employment rights which were granted by the Working Time Regulations
in 1998 which we would expect the House to apply as best it can,
but, on the whole, I think the new hours have been advantageous
to more staff than they have disadvantaged.
Miss Foster: I would add to that
that staff who work night duty have broadly welcomed the new sitting
hours, although there is concern about the impact it is having
on allowances or will have on allowances.
Q114 Chairman: What precisely?
Miss Foster: Allowances are based
on a five-year rolling average. Night-duty times have been decreasing
and so we are in negotiations with management at the moment to
make sure that any staff who rely on their night duty allowances
are not adversely affected and we can arrange a transitional arrangement
for them.
Q115 Mr Pike: There is a long outstanding
case of attendants and doorkeepers that still has not been resolved.
There are two different categories of payment. There is one for
the old people on an old payment, where they have protection of
the system, and one for the new ones who come in. This is one
of the areas that has still not been resolved. Is that what you
are saying?
Miss Foster: That is an additional
area, I would say, that certainly has still not been resolved.
Q116 Mr Pike: But it does need resolving,
does it not?
Miss Foster: Yes. It is something
that we are talking with management about at the moment.
Dr Pond: In fact, there is a dispute
about protected pay at the moment which one of our unions, PCS,
have with management and that is going through the arbitration
process as we speak.
Q117 Chairman: You have given a very
helpful overview. What proportion of the House's staff have working
hours determined wholly or partly by the sitting times, would
you say, roughly?
Dr Pond: I would have thought
it might be about a quarter of the House's staff as a whole. But
of course there will be areas within the House service, particularly
the Clerk's Department, the Official Report, the Library, where
a much greater proportion of the staff will be affected.
Q118 Chairman: If not everybody.
Dr Pond: Probably not everybody,
but a large proportion.
Q119 Mr Kidney: Looking at whether the
hours are family friendly for staff rather than Members of Parliament,
the House is probably going to be asked to vote on whether to
turn back one or more of the days to 2.30 until 10.00. Which is
better in terms of family friendliness for the staff, to stay
as we are or to turn days back?
Dr Pond: I think turning days
back would cause almost insurmountable problems in one or two
areas; in particular, the Legislation Office where staff are already
working 12-13-hour days. It is not family unfriendly one day a
week but two days a week I think might in fact be the straw that
broke the camel's back. I think our experience is that where organisations
have decided rapidly to change their service hours—and a
reasonable example of that is public libraries, a lot of which
are now open on Sundays and later in the evenings—generally
speaking, the employer has countered the effects on existing staff
by employing a new cohort of staff to do the additional working.
In my local library, for instance, which opens now on Sunday.
It is very welcome that it does open on Sunday, but there is a
completely new set of staff who are employed so as (a) not to
interfere with the working patterns of the existing staff and
(b) to allow the employer to adhere properly to the requirements
of the Working Time Regulations 1998.
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