Whitley Committee
9.4. Staff who are officials or members of the local branches
of these associations have joined together to form a House of
Lords' Trade Union organisation. As such they have regular meetings
with the management. The joint body of management and staff is
called the House of Lords' Whitley Committee which is based broadly
on the Civil Service Whitley system introduced as a result of
recommendations made in 1917 and 1918 by a Committee under the
chairmanship of the Right Hon. J. H. Whitley MP. The general object
of the Whitley Committee as defined in its constitution is to
secure the greatest measure of co-operation between the Clerk
of the Parliaments, as employer, and those staff represented by
trade unions in matters affecting the efficiency of the Departments
and the wellbeing of the staff of the House; to provide machinery
for dealing with grievances; and generally to bring together the
experience and different points of view of all concerned; provided
that the privileges of the House are not affected thereby.
9.5. The scope of the Committee comprises all matters which
affect the conditions of service of those staff represented by
Trade Unions and the House of Lords Staff Association and its
functions are:
(a) Provision of the best means for drawing on the ability,
experience, ideas and initiative of the staff concerned;
(b) Determination of the general principles governing the
conditions of service of the staff concerned, for example, their
emoluments, weekly hours of work and leave insofar as they fall
within the jurisdiction of the Clerk of the Parliaments. The expression
"emoluments" shall include pay and allowances in the
nature of pay, bonus, overtime rates, subsistence rates, travelling
and lodging allowances;
(c) Means for securing for the staff concerned a proper share
in the determination of, and responsibility for the observance
of, the conditions under which their duties are carried out;
(d) The encouragement of the further education of the staff
and their training;
(e) The consideration of proposed legislation so far as it
has a bearing upon the position of members of staff in relation
to their employment in the House of Lords;
(f) The discussion of the application of the general principles
governing superannuation to the members of the staff in the House
of Lords.
The Committee does not consider specific proposals for the revision
of the emoluments or other conditions of service of a particular
grade of staff.
Procedural agreement for negotiating pay
and related conditions of service
9.6. There is an agreement between the Trade Unions listed
above and the Clerk of the Parliaments setting out a joint machinery
for the determination of pay and related conditions of service
for staff at Band A (formerly Grade 6) and below. The agreement
covers: pay ranges; assimilation arrangements; pay progression;
pay determination (basis of increase); starting pay on promotion;
performance related pay principles, including bonus; recruitment
and retention allowance; grading or banding structures; skill
and other allowances; overtime and night allowances; hours of
work; annual leave; temporary promotion principles; deputising
allowance principles and travel and subsistence rules.
