I welcome members of the press and public to the sixth Finance Committee meeting in 2005. I remind people to turn off their pagers and mobile phones. We have apologies from John Swinburne and Ted Brocklebank.
I am a member of the Transport and General Workers Union and the Association of University Teachers.
I am a member of the EIS and the TGWU.
I am a member of the TGWU.
I invite Grahame Smith to make an opening statement, if he wishes. I would appreciate it if he can refrain from making any reference to Sunday's events—perhaps he can sort the matter out with Eddie Reilly, who is sitting next to him.
I never comment on those matters.
PCS has submitted evidence on all the matters that are under consideration today. I will highlight a few points on top of that. As members know from previous evidence that we have submitted to the Finance Committee, we have campaigned with the STUC for some time now to have central machinery set up to co-ordinate relocation work. We certainly welcome the team that has been set up in the public bodies unit of the Scottish Executive's Finance and Central Services Department. As the revised guidance shows, the new team is not only co-ordinating and reviewing, but considering the application and implementation of relocation policy for the future.
Following our initial inquiry, which sought to get greater transparency on relocation, the committee thinks that we have made significant progress. "The Relocation Guide" deals with some of the concerns that were identified by the trade unions and by the committee in our report, but we recognise that issues remain and that, with any relocation policy, there will always be some intractable problems. We will focus on those.
As the convener indicated, the committee feels that many of our concerns have been addressed. You mentioned that you welcome the Executive's new relocation unit. We, too, feel that it will help to ensure that the process is transparent. How much consultation with the trade unions was there while "The Relocation Guide" was being drafted? Were any comments that the trade unions made during that process reflected in the final draft of the document?
We had a meeting with civil servants from the unit late last year, which we found to be helpful and constructive. I echo the convener's points. The fact that the Finance Committee played an important role in bringing about a much healthier and more transparent position has certainly not been lost on the trade unions. At our meeting, the civil servants gave us great encouragement to engage positively in the process. We now have the revised guidance and I am confident that we will make detailed submissions on it. Overall, we are much happier than we were a year ago with the degree of engagement that we have with the relocation process. The Executive's unit is encouraging our participation.
You mentioned the uncertainty that staff experience as a result of the long delays in decision making on relocations. What happens during that period? Do the unions get involved in discussions with ministers? You mentioned the case of the Accountant in Bankruptcy. Although people know that that agency is going to Ayrshire, they do not know exactly where in Ayrshire it will be. How are staff and the unions being kept informed of the thinking on that?
Therein lies the great problem. It is not our normal practice to demand meetings with ministers on individual cases. When we next have a meeting with the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform, we will log such matters with him. The issue will certainly be mentioned when we put our views on the guidance to the public bodies unit but, in essence, we cannot resolve such problems with senior civil servants through the usual industrial relations machinery.
What would improve the situation from the staff's point of view? Would it be helpful for them to be given a timetable for decision making at the beginning of the process? That would give them an understanding of the consideration framework.
The experience with the Accountant in Bankruptcy is not typical. We have not had similar experiences with previous relocations, such as that of the Scottish Public Pensions Agency or those involved as part of the small units relocation policy. Discussions about the relocation of the transport agency are on-going; at least the city, if not the precise location, has been decided. Our experience with the Accountant in Bankruptcy is rather curious; it is not akin to our experience with other relocations. It seems to be the case that the minister just will not take the decision. That situation must be addressed as quickly as possible. In the meantime, all that we can do is report back to our members that we are doing our best, through the usual machinery, to get the decision made. There is not a problem as regards industrial relations; it is just a question of the decision being made on the agency's new location. Once that has been done, the proper arrangements can be made, whereby staff can opt to transfer or to move to other jobs, as happened in other cases of relocation.
I want to leave aside the mainstream civil service and to consider non-departmental public bodies and other public bodies. You referred to the consultation that takes place within the civil service negotiating machinery. Is there equivalent discussion about the position of NDPB staff and other staff?
Matt Smith might want to comment on Unison's view, but PCS feels that the amount of consultation and discussion that takes place with individual NDPBs is reasonable. However, one of the reasons why we were so keen for the new unit to be set up was that we felt that it was necessary to have an overview of relocation policy that extended across the NDPBs—in particular, those that are covered by the Scottish Executive's main sponsoring departments—and did not just relate to the mainstream civil service or to large local government bodies.
I thoroughly endorse what Eddie Reilly has said. We have been involved in discussions on the issue—I remember that at an early stage we had meetings with the then Minister for Finance and Public Services—but we have not been involved in the detail. I fully appreciate that the major concerns rest with Eddie Reilly and the civil service unions, but the process impacts on Unison's membership, too. Concern about NDPBs is one example of that, but similar situations could arise in the health service and other agencies. We are keen to continue to have involvement and we will liaise with our colleagues in other trade unions on the matter.
That issue perhaps spills over into our next agenda item. I will pursue the transferability of staff of NDPBs, which is a particularly contentious issue. At present, such staff do not have the rights of transfer that civil servants have. Do you believe that that lack of transferability could militate against the Executive's taking a properly strategic approach to relocation? Is that a concern?
I am really glad that I came, now.
Some of those issues arose during the transfer of staff from Scottish Homes to Communities Scotland. Does Alan Denney want to comment?
At the time of the SNH debacle, there was a presumption by some ministers that we could readily transfer more than 200 staff from SNH into the Scottish Executive. They missed not only the point that Eddie Reilly made about non-transferability, but the fact that there were not 250 vacancies in the Scottish Executive to accommodate those staff. They also took no account of the skills mix; the staff from SNH were specialists and were not the type of staff who could readily be accommodated in the Scottish Executive. That point was overlooked and I am fearful that it will be overlooked elsewhere. It is assumed that there is an immediate transferability of specialist skills, but that is not always the case.
On the specifics of what is on the table at the moment, I am interested to know the unions' views on the relocations that have been brought about by the small units initiative.
Since the policy began, the only relocation that has caused any problems from an industrial relations point of view was that of SNH. That is not to say that we might not be in the midst of problems with the transport agency, because of the size of the relocation. However, many of the other relocations involve small units and it is a lot easier to deal with matters that arise regarding individuals who want to stay or want to go. In the case of the central inquiry unit, delays and changes of views by ministers—and, it appears, senior civil servants—created a problem; I am not sure whether that issue has been resolved yet. Overall, however, we have not encountered any industrial relations difficulties.
Building on that, and given that PCS has taken the time and trouble to go and look in some detail at the Irish model, do you think that there might be an opportunity to blend the two approaches in an holistic way and to trigger something that might lead to larger numbers of staff moving from centralised departments of the Executive?
I do not think that we would have any objection to a more imaginative approach along those lines. Of course, the Irish position is based on volunteers only. If Scottish ministers were to adopt such an approach, that would create an entirely different agenda, with which we could positively engage.
I want to drill down further on that point, because it is particularly useful. If we take the small units initiative, add the experience of Ireland and the point about volunteers, and perhaps a wish list from the witnesses on what might be needed to create a better fit in Scotland, do you think that it would be possible to produce something that is more likely to persuade sufficient numbers of volunteers to relocate? That would not only be worth while from the standpoint of efficient government, but it would reactivate parts of the Scottish economy in the regions of Scotland.
I have no problem at all with that approach. That is why, as I said earlier, I welcome the fact that the public bodies unit is not just monitoring the situation but engaging in a review. We want the review to be much wider and we want to get into discussions—in which the STUC will have a particular role—on the social and economic criteria. Some MSPs and ministers tell us that the policy as currently applied keeps suggesting Livingston. Why does it not suggest Coatbridge, Airdrie or wherever? There is a wider agenda: although the relocation policy has existed for six years, it has not been fundamentally re-examined to see whether it is still fit for purpose in terms of what people want from it. There is now an opportunity through the public bodies unit's reviewing role for the Finance Committee and others to consider the issue more fundamentally than just asking whether what is going on now is working or whether it is giving us problems. I hope that that kind of debate on relocation policy will continue.
We have probably exhausted our specific questions on relocation. It would help us to have the responses that were mentioned from PCS and the other civil service unions to "The Relocation Guide". Our intention is to discuss any points that arise from the revised guide at next week's meeting and to draw up a draft response to the Executive on 22 March. I hope that our timetable will fit in with yours. If you can give us the information, we will consider it in that context.