- Conference
- 2024 National Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 6 December 2023
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes the HSGE’s consultation with regional health committees (RHCs) during the autumn of 2023 which looked at issues of democratic legitimacy within the Executive’s ways-of-working. Focusing on HSGE decision-making around pay and bargaining policy, the consultation considered the impact of UK devolution and the balance of time devoted to those members directly covered by the Agenda for Change (AfC) agreement versus those outside it.
Conference welcomes the constructive engagement of RHCs with these complex issues and endorses the need for the HSGE to regularly consider and review how it conducts itself in an ever-changing political and industrial environment.
Conference notes the need to balance concerns about how HSGE reps participate in decision-making on matters that affect different groups of members, with the need to maintain the unity and collective responsibility of all HSGE members for all the members who belong to our service group.
Conference also notes that the outcome of the general election could have implications for how UK devolution issues and the make-up of the wider healthcare workforce develop in the next period. Therefore, caution about investing time and resources in making major internal structural changes to how the service group operates is appropriate at this stage.
Conference calls on the HSGE to:
1. Reaffirm the ‘Devolved NHS pay determination policy’ adopted by Health Conference in 2016 which recognised that our pay policy can be set at a UK-wide or devolved government level only and that where devolved health committees set pay policy for their jurisdiction they will do so within a UK-wide set of core UNISON common principles.
2. Update the HSGE’s Handbook with effect from the HSGE term of office starting in summer 2024 to include:
a) provisions covering the principle that voluntary abstentions by relevant HSGE reps are appropriate on bargaining and pay policy decisions that have no effect in the part of the UK for which they have a mandate
b) an expectation that the HSGE’s AfC sub-group will use links with England RHCs to seek any additional input needed when formulating recommendations to the HSGE on decisions exclusively affecting members in England
c) guidance on the planning of meeting agendas and the structuring of reports to support due consideration of priorities for the non-AfC workforce
d) intention to seek regular updates on the pay and bargaining work programmes of the Private Contractor Forum and other structures within the union relevant to non-AfC members in the health service group.
3. Produce guidance for use in the induction of new HSGE reps on the types of bargaining and pay policy decisions the HSGE is likely to deal with, covering how decisions can have direct, indirect or no effect in devolved contexts.
4. Use the Handbook changes and guidance to inform branches about how the HSGE takes account of devolution in its decision-making on AfC pay and bargaining issues.