CHAPTER 9: CONSULTATION

Trade union membership

9.1. The Clerk of the Parliaments attaches importance to ensuring effective consultation and involvement of staff. If is, of course, a personal decision whether or not to join a trade union. But staff are encouraged to join an appropriate trade union and to play an active part within it, making sure that their views are represented. The following organisations, having shown that a majority of staff in certain grades have become members, have been recognised by, or on behalf of, the House of Lords' House Committee as representing the grades specified for the purpose of discussing their pay and conditions of service with the management:

Organisation Grades represented

Prospect (formerly Institution of Hansard grades
Professionals, Managers and Specialists)

Public and Commercial Services Executive and Clerical grades, Catering grades above D2 (RD), Doorkeepers, Attendants and Housekeepers Union

GMB Food and Leisure Section Catering staff in the Refreshment Department

9.2. Special leave may be allowed for staff on official duties connected with trade unions or Whitley Committee business.

House of Lords (Parliament Office) Staff Association

9.3. In addition, the House of Lords (Parliament Office) Staff Association has been accorded membership of the Whitley Committee. However, the Association cannot itself negotiate with management and uses the services of the Public and Commercial Services Union for those purposes.

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. Since May 1996, an agreement has also existed between the Trade Unions listed above and the Clerk of the Parliaments establishing 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.