Your Councillors

Enc. 2 for Proposed Changes to Staff terms and Conditions

Appendix B

�Equality Impact Assessment � Terms and Conditions 2014

1. What are the main aims purpose and outcomes of the Policy and how do these fit with the wider aims of the organization?

The council has recently consulted on changes to a variety of policies that affect staff as part of the annual pay bargaining processes. There are two main reasons for the changes:

Standardise/ harmonise our policies to match our MKIP partners
Save costs/resources over time

At the same time the council wants to minimise employee relations issues with staff and some of the changes will therefore only apply to new staff.

Eight changes have been consulted through the trade union consultation process:

Formalise the removal of the link to NJC;
Reduction in annual leave entitlement;
Removal of unsocial hours payments;
Reduction in number of days compassionate leave;
�In principle� enabling agreement to change the flexi-time policy;
New Excess Travel Policy;
Removal of the Maternity Support Leave policy;
Changes to the Long Service awards.

All these terms and conditions are part of the benefits package for employees working at the council and the wider aim is to ensure that the council is able to recruit and retain good quality staff to deliver its corporate priorities.

The council�s approach to service delivery is changing and this is not necessarily always by means of directly employed staff but maybe through working in partnership with others. Currently our most significant partnership is the Mid Kent Improvement Partnership (MKIP) with Tunbridge Wells and Swale Councils with almost 215 people working in one of the shared services. There is no single employment model for the shared services and this means that the managers of these services may be operating three different sets of terms and conditions and wherever possible the aim of these changes are to streamline our policies to more closely match those of the other two partners.

2. How do these aims affect our duty to:

� Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimization and other conduct prohibited by the act.

� Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.

� Foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.

All these changes will be applied equally to our staff with the exception of the changes to annual leave which will be applied only to new starters and those that change job after the changes are applied. It is not possible to know the equalities profile of those that are not yet employed so this impact assessment is written on the basis that new recruits will follow the same profile as current employees. An outline analysis of our current workforce is below.

In considering the impact of the changes it should also be noted that although some of these terms were available in theory in practice over the years they have been rarely used by the majority of staff so the actual impact is what needs to be assessed rather than the hypothetical impact.

Policy	Affects	Impact
Formalise the removal of the link to NJC	All staff affected	No impact as local terms and conditions are either more favourable or mirror NJC
Removal of unsocial hours payments	Two current Civic Officers given protection no others affected.	There have been no claims for unsocial hours payments other than the Civic Officers who will continue to receive it whilst in employment but benefit will not be offered to new starters. Some limited use was made of this during flooding and there is an intention to develop separate Emergency Planning payments.
��In principle� enabling agreement to change the flexi-time policy	All staff potentially affected	The actual changes will be consulted with staff; proposals do not significantly change the current policy.
New Excess Travel Policy	All staff potentially affected	This policy is not a change from what has been applied in the past but it has not been formally set out in a policy. It is only applied at the point that the council changes an employee�s work base and is not therefore applied to many staff. The most recent changes in Environmental Health have used this policy.
Removal of the Maternity Support Leave policy	All staff potentially affected	Maternity support leave given to a person nominated by an expectant mother to support them � up to 5 days paid leave. �Since 2011 we only have records of this being taken by 6 members of staff.
Changes to the Long Service awards	All staff affected after ten years� service with the council	This will be a positive impact on employees as it recognises staff after 10 years rather than 20 years � the forecast for next year would give a benefit to 59 people rather than the 19 people that would benefit from the current scheme.
Reduction in number of days compassionate leave	All staff may be affected on an ad hoc basis	In 2013/14 eighteen members of staff took compassionate leave � of these only five took more than 5 days (3 took 7 days and 2 took 6 days).
Reduction in annual leave entitlement	All staff �affected	For existing staff there will only be an impact when they change jobs and only for grades 8-16. For new staff in these grades they will have a lower annual leave entitlement but as this is at a level that is comparable to other employers this should not act as a disadvantage to recruitment nor be less than they would anticipate. Full breakdown of the changes and impact are in tables at the end of the document.

The change to the long service policy is the main policy change that contributes to the elimination of inequality as it extends an age related benefit.

3. What aspects of the policy including how it is delivered or accessed could contribute to inequality?

The greatest impact will be with regard to annual leave entitlements as these have been reduced in grades 8-16 for new starters and for those that change role, although current staff will be protected on their current entitlements. There is some suggestion that this could be more detrimental to women who general carry more caring responsibilities outside of work than their male counterparts. There two other factors that should assist with the need for flexibility for caring responsibilities, the first is the Flexible Working Regulations 2014 which have extended the opportunities for formal requests for flexible working for any reason and the second is that the council allows employees to but additional annual leave days to assist with work/life balance issues.

With regard to new starters the trade unions felt that this was not an issue as new recruits are made aware of the terms at the start of their employment and the revised offer is still considered to be a solid employment offer.

4. Will the policy have an impact (positive or negative) upon the lives of people, including particular communities and groups who have protected characteristics ? What evidence do you have for this?

There should be no wider impact on the lives of the wider community.

There will be minimal impact on staff for most of these policy changes as there were very few people paid or using the benefit and where there is a wider impact protection has been provided.

There will be a positive benefit to staff in the extension of the long service award (which could be considered to be indirectly related to age) as a greater number of people will be included.

Appendix One

Equalities Profile 1^st April 2014

Age

Disability

�

Ethnicity

Gender

Gender analysis of annual leave changes

Maidstone current	Start	5 years	Maidstone new	5 years	Loss years 1-4	Total loss
Grades 1-7	22	27	22	27	0	0
Grades 8-11	25	30	24	27	-1	-3
Grades 12-13	27	32	26	29	-1	-3
Grades 14-16	32	37	32	32	0	-5

Maidstone current	Male	Female	Impact analysis
Grades 1-7	125	185	Movement within grades 1-7 has no impact. Promotion from grades 1-7 into grades 8-11 gives an initial increase in leave but after 5 years is equivalent to grades 1-7 so no impact.
Grades 8-11	73	78	Movement within grade would mean a reduction in annual leave but with a broadly similar number of males and females in the grade there is no indirect discrimination. Promotion to grade 12-13 would give an increase of one day if under 5 years� service but a reduction of one day if over 5 years, however male/female numbers broadly the same so no indirect discrimination.
Grades 12-13	22	15	This change affects proportionately more males than females, but there is relatively little job movement in this grade level. A promotion from this level into grade 14 would have no impact on annual leave entitlement.
Grades 14-16	10	4	Grade 14 is the Head of Service grade and there is very little scope for job movement at this level, the same applies for grade 15 � director positions.