The Staff and Union View

IPRS Meeting - Vienna - 24th July 2005

Hello everyone.  I’m Emma Brazier, one of several union representatives in Commons Hansard. 

The Union and the House of Commons

The union is Prospect.  It’s relatively small, and its members are mostly professionals and specialists.  Because the majority of Hansard staff are dedicated to one main function, editorial output, about 75 per cent. of us are in the same union.

Most of the union work in the Department is done by the branch chairman, my colleague Ken Gall, and me, the branch secretary—although I have to say that we don’t use those titles a great deal!  We also have representatives from the different grades in the Department.

The House advises its staff to join one of the four recognised unions, and industrial relations are conducted according to a well established system used throughout the civil service, which is intended to maximise co-operation between management and staff.

The review of reporting services – our reaction

As Vivian has already acknowledged, the announcement of the review did not exactly fit with that well established practice.  Management’s failure to inform the trade union of their intentions meant that the first we heard of the process was when we were invited, along with senior staff, to a meeting called by the then editor at short notice.  This did not make for the ideal atmosphere in which to announce a wholesale review of the Department and the involvement of external consultants. 

To compound the problem, the first that the rest of the staff heard of the review was in a letter from the editor later that day, and by the time deputy editors held further meetings to explain the situation, serious damage had been done to the management-staff relationship, with employees feeling distrust of the motives behind the review.

This left union representatives, and some senior staff, in a difficult position.  We could understand management concerns about working hours and the concentration of some work into certain days of the week.  Yet, in the difficult atmosphere surrounding the announcement of the review, there was little chance of a measured dialogue on any of those issues.

Ken and I questioned the timing of the review because, to make matters more difficult, its announcement was set against a background of uncertainty about terms and conditions in the House.  The modernisation process had resulted in some earlier sitting times and in fewer long sittings.  In response, the House authorities wanted to revise the allowances and payments used to reward staff for late and/or long hours.  The process had only really got under way when our review was launched. Because we did not know how we were to be rewarded, it would be difficult for us properly to evaluate any proposed changes in working hours that might emerge from the review.

Staff Concerns

Ken and I quickly arranged a union meeting so that we could find out what issues mattered to staff most and, if possible, allay some of their concerns.  As I am sure you’re all aware, with any wholesale review that holds the possibility of radical restructuring, the concerns of staff are similar, whatever the organisation. 

First, and most important, they are worried about compulsory redundancies.  With that in mind, Ken and I moved quickly to allay that fear by going to the editor and asking for an assurance that there would be no redundancies—an assurance that he was prepared to give.

People fear that their pay will go down, and they worry, too, that their wider terms and conditions, and working practices, will change for the worse, perhaps even to the extent that they will no longer want to work for the organisation. 

In Hansard, there was another concern: that the quality of our product and the professionalism of the staff would be put at risk.  Vivian has already described our report as highly regarded, but this process enabled us to see just how committed our staff are to upholding that reputation.  At every meeting staff sought an assurance that nothing would be allowed to endanger quality and professionalism.

In addition, there was, inevitably, great suspicion of the idea of external consultants.  Hansard staff are well used to people failing to comprehend the more unusual aspects of our work, and we had no reason to believe that management consultants would be any different.  In time, it became clear that their role was much more minor than we originally thought, and as Vivian has said, the most relevant parts of their report were things we knew already or could have found out for ourselves.  

Finally, the staff’s response to the notion of change was coloured by certain IT difficulties the Department had been having.  I’m sure I don’t have to tell anyone here how frustrating malfunctioning technology can be!  A new IT system had been introduced, not entirely smoothly, and long-promised digital audio technology was still not completely up and running.  To put it bluntly, staff thought that if long-planned and well-funded technological changes were proving difficult, there was little chance of more fundamental organisational change proceeding smoothly.

Staff participation in the review.

Several questions occurred to union reps at this point.  The first, bearing in mind management’s failure to follow established practice and inform the union of their intentions, was whether we should advise staff simply not to co-operate with the review at all.

We quickly decided against that because we wanted to uphold that industrial relations practice ourselves.  Also, we recognised that, because staff were so concerned about issues like quality, their participation could, if they were listened to, inform and benefit the outcome.  We did not, ultimately, want to be passive recipients of the process when we had so much to contribute.

A second question was whether interested members of staff should conduct a parallel review.  After all, the argument ran, who knows Hansard better than its staff?  We decided against that, too, primarily because the task would have been too much for staff to manage on top of their duties.  Also, we would have had difficulty accessing much of the necessary financial and performance data.  However, Ken and I were only too happy for individual members to learn more about various areas covered by the review.  This not only helped inform our response to developments, but gave many members of staff a good grounding in the review’s central themes.

Having decided that staff should participate, Ken and I were still concerned that involvement would imply what we might call “buy-in”, by which I mean automatic acceptance of any proposals or decisions that emerged.   To make the position clear, we simply stated at every opportunity—at meetings with management, in focus groups and in formal communications—that staff participation in no way implied acceptance of the resulting conclusions.

The union’s role

Without going into detail, I’ll try to give an idea of what Ken and I saw as our main tasks during this time.  First, we were busy simply keeping ourselves informed about the developments and the issues; this is where the other representatives really came into their own because they could keep us informed about the views of staff at all grades.

Union reps are a sort of conduit between staff and management, conveying the views and objectives of one group to the other, with the interests of our members uppermost in our minds.  That role has been important throughout the review, and it has paid dividends.  Early on, staff had many questions, not surprisingly, and in response management began to make information available.  A dedicated website containing relevant documents was set up for staff.

Wider communications have also played their part.  We have been in frequent contact with our union headquarters officer, an experienced negotiator and fount of knowledge and advice.  We also attend monthly meetings with Prospect representatives from other Departments, at which we report developments. 

Ken and I also requested a meeting with the steering group, the small panel of senior Commons staff directing the review.  Because the majority of its members were from outside the Department, we wanted to make sure that they were aware of our members’ concerns.  The request was granted, and I like to think that the meeting played at least a small part in positive development, which was the decision that nothing in the review’s outcome should diminish the quality of Hansard’s output.  Obviously, this reassured staff.

Given the staff’s initial anxiety about the review, and the widespread scepticism about its aims, I saw one of the union’s key roles as questioning the basic assumptions and assertions made by management during the process, not necessarily to undermine them but as a means of getting management to justify them, perhaps with the provision of additional information.  Although much of this was done on an informal, ad hoc basis, in meetings or emails, we did submit to the editor a formal response to the steering group’s report.  In this we questioned, among other things, the consultants’ analysis of the Department’s costs and capacity.  We could not be sure how rigorous that was and, as we know, one can prove anything with statistics.

Where we are now.

This slide shows how long the process has been – and the fact that it is not over yet!  I should point out, though, that there have been periods of relative inactivity. 

Early this year, as Vivian has mentioned, four groups of staff, facilitated by managers, conducted further exploration of the ideas recommended by the steering group.  They submitted their findings to management, who revealed their final decisions in a seminar to staff on 1 July.  Implementation is set to begin this October, but the more major changes are expected to be made in 2006.

The decisions – the positives

Management have decided that Hansard should begin to take on Select Committee work, bit by bit, primarily as a way of importing work for quieter days and weeks, but also as a way of bringing this work, which is traditionally done by a private company, in-house.  What is good for staff is that many Select Committees are both high-profile and interesting, making our work more varied.

What will also make our work more interesting, in many cases, are changed job descriptions, particularly for staff who are of a reasonably high grade but who currently have no real management duties.  Many of these duties are being trickled down from higher grades to give people more responsibility and variety in their work.  This change and the creation of an intermediate reporter grade are intended to improve staff retention.

Finally, throughout the document setting out management’s decisions there is an emphasis on the training and development needs of staff, with job descriptions for each post including shadowing staff in the post above, not only to prepare people for promotion but to provide variety and interest.

The decisions – our concerns

I emphasise that at this stage most of our concerns stem from a lack of detailed information about how changes will work in practice.  Our main concern is the length and shape of the working week for staff at each grade, primarily because of the “topping up” of quieter days and weeks with Select Committee work.  The crucial question, which has yet to be answered, is how much topping up there will be.

It is crucial, first, because rewards for late and/or long hours have still to be determined, and secondly because of health and safety.  The fact that our small Department has a full-time health and safety manager reflects well-founded concern about intensive keyboard work and long hours.  Some staff have suffered injury or discomfort, and it would be wrong to invite more problems. 

Another concern is staff numbers.  For the most part the current complement is being maintained, but we are losing three senior posts through natural wastage.  I worry that with the extra duties in our new job descriptions, the welcome commitment to continuous training and development will be unachievable.

Finally, I have said that staff retention may be improved at entry level and just above, but once people have been appointed to the new intermediate grade, further promotion will be contingent on personnel changes.  With a relatively young management cohort and low staff turnover, the loss of those three senior posts means that there may be little movement for a long time—and that will not aid retention.

Where do we go from here?

With the question of how the House is to reward us for working late and/or long hours still unresolved, it will be difficult to achieve clarity on some of these issues.

However, what is clear is that Ken and I can expect to be involved in quite detailed discussions about working times, the exact nature of the new job descriptions, staff numbers and the amount of Select Committee work that Hansard can take on.

At least now, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, even if we are not at the end, or the beginning of the end, we are at the end of the beginning.  Thank you.