Issue - meetings

The Committee gave consideration to a report of the Deputy Chief Executive which sought agreement to the first phase of a restructure of Unity IT. The Committee noted that the proposed restructure had been agreed by the Unity Partnership Board of Directors on 10^th March 2020.

The Articles of Association provided that any proposed programme of redundancies or rationalisation of a group of employees was a reserved matter and it was therefore appropriate that the Committee consider and determine the recommendations of the report.

Members were informed that a review had been undertaken within Unity ICT, the key finding of which was to recommend a restructure to develop the digital skills necessary for a modern IT Support function, with an emphasis on remote support and cloud-based computing. The restructure would increase the number of staff in certain teams, in order to boost the capability in the developing areas, but reduce numbers required in some existing traditional roles and capabilities.

The expected overall impact would result in the number of operations staff reducing by 4 posts, with the current 45 posts reducing to 41 by the end of the financial year 2020/21.

The reduction would be achieved by the removal of 7 existing posts and the creation of 3 new posts. Wherever possible the reduction in posts would be achieved through voluntary redundancy and the Unions had been fully engaged throughout.

Following a voluntary redundancy exercise, it was recommended that six ICT staff should be allowed to leave the organisation. The seventh post to be removed would be achieved by redeployment and retraining.

The Committee noted that budgetary provision had been made for the restructure but agreed that no compulsory redundancies would take place.

Options/Alternatives considered

Option 1 - Do nothing

Option 2 - Approve the Unity IT restructure

RESOLVED- That:

1.    The approval of the Board of Directors to the restructuring of the ICT service be noted.

2.    That their decision be endorsed and the ‘rationalisation of a group of employees’ that would involve the use of voluntary redundancy be agreed.

3.    No compulsory redundancies would take place.