Agenda item

Robert O’ Reilly introduced the report (Agenda Item 4) which introduced a new HR policy to reduce the risk to the Council associated with the employment of casual workers. The new policy would ensure that casual workers would not be paid for more than nine consecutive months without the express written permission being given by the Head of HR.

The Head of HR explained that although there was already advice and guidance in place for managers it was not always followed. A policy was therefore being introduced to ensure that the procedures were adhered to.

Mr O’ Reilly explained that the nine month cut off had been introduced to ensure that the Council had a safety margin in place. Where it was necessary to continue to employ the casual worker into months 10 or 11 the manager would need to seek written permission from the Head of HR. Casual workers would not be employed for more than 12 consecutive months as this would then mean that they were entitled to a range of employment rights. He explained that he did not envisage issuing many letters to extend the term of employment past the nine moth mark.

The Head of HR explained that in the event of a senior manager having to be recruited to cover a temporary vacancy this would be done by a fixed term contract. These interim managers would be entitled to employment rights such as sick pay etc if the contract exceeded one or two years but their exit would be dealt with via the fixed term contract.

It was noted that in respect of these casual workers that had already been employed for more than twelve months a report would be going to BuMP to agree that they would be placed on the establishment. These employees were obviously already being paid and part of this process would be to ensure that the budgets for paying them were properly aligned. The Committee were informed that the establishment was likely to increase by around 110 people and some of their hours would be put onto core contracts.

In response to a query from Councillor Edwards as to who would be responsible for monitoring casual workers length of employment it was explained that HR and Payroll would have access to the information via the Resourcelink programme. Payroll would give appropriate people in HR access to the information and letters would be sent to the casual workers by HR. This information would also be included in the introductory letter that casual workers would receive when they commenced working for the Council.

The Committee felt that it was important to clarify to managers in the policy in the event of a casual worker covering two or more posts their cumulative employment period could not exceed nine months i.e. if they spent five months in one role and then took on another casual role they could not do so for more than 4 months without permission from the Head of HR but that in any event this period could not exceed 12 months.  Members therefore asked that HR include a paragraph in the policy to this effect.

Action(s)

• Personnel Committee agreed the new Casual workers policy subject to the inclusion of the minor amendments raised at the meeting.