Labour has now fully dismantled the reporting process for trade union facility time in government departments. The pilgrims can proliferate without the hassle of public scrutiny…
Facility time is paid time off for union staff working in the public sector. It has long been abused by union stooges – the Employment Rights Act removed a requirement imposed in 2016 for departments to report on how much facility time was being taken, and its cost…
The Cabinet Office has now dismantled reporting requirements. Ministers said yesterday in a Parliamentary answer:
“The team whose responsibilities previously included amongst other duties, collecting, collating and publishing public sector facility time data sits within a wider Civil Service Reward and Employment division. This division has existed for a number of years. The removal of the requirement for public sector organisations to report their facility time data to Cabinet Office has resulted in these specific responsibilities no longer forming part of this team’s remit.”
In Labour’s impact assessment the removal of the requirement was framed as a deregulatory benefit: “We assumed that it would take 8 hours of an HR officer to compile the information for the Cabinet Office each year, at an hourly labour cost of £18.23. This gives an estimated cost saving from reduced data collection of 2293 x 8 x 18.23 = £334,000.” Doesn’t sound like any staff will actually be removed from the reporting team – good luck making those savings…
Starmer said to Robert Peston this afternoon:
“I’m fed up with the fact that families across the country see their bills go up and down on energy businesses bills go up and down on energy because of the actions of Putin or Trump across the world.”