The following details have been supplied by the GEC:

On Monday 06 June 2016 Operations TUS took part in a telekit, to discuss the pilot that BSD are running for dealing with short-notice leave applications.

From mid-April management have been trialling a system where any leave requested in either of the following two weeks is looked at differently to how more longer term leave requests are dealt with. The process is meant to be that each site is given its own leave allocation of up to 3%, and the requests are dealt with locally within that allocation.

We raised a number of concerns when this pilot was initially introduced. One of our key issues was, and still is, the fact that only a maximum of 3% leave is being allocated to any site. Due to BSD’s on-going use of an 18% cap on leave, there are times when the amount available for short-notice leave is below the 3%. For example: When the amount of pre-booked leave is already at 16%, only 2% is made available, or in the weeks when the 18% has already been reached no leave is available for short-notice leave.

However, when the level of pre-booked leave is less than 15% the amount available for short-notice leave is still limited to just 3%. This has the result of restricting the total amount of all leave available in some weeks to well below the 18%.

Current Position

In addition to the fundamental issues with this pilot there is also a great deal of inconsistency with how the pilot is actually being operated on the ground. We highlighted the fact that this trial is being run in ways which vary significantly from site to site. We believe that this will make it exceedingly difficult for management to carry out any meaningful evaluation.

We also raised concerns about the way in which this pilot is being used to apply further restrictions on leave. A number of sites have used this as an opportunity to make the short-notice leave only available on certain days of the week, with some sites only making the leave available Tuesday to Friday, or even Tuesday to Thursday.

We also gave examples of sites where this had been used to simply re-introduce the old contact centre Network Days system, albeit with the exclusion of Mondays and on at least one site Fridays, at the expense of any other type of short-notice leave applications. This was clearly contrary to management’s original stated intentions of how they wanted this system to operate.

Urgent Review

As a result of the issues we raised, management proposed that they would seek feedback from across BSD sites about how the trial was progressing and any issues that it was generating. We agreed that we would do the same. The aim being to get back together in about four weeks time to discuss the issue in more detail.

Whilst we welcome the fact that some access to short-notice leave seems to have been restored for our contact centre members, we do not believe that this pilot goes far enough. We also do not see what benefit this adds to our members working in processing sites.

We will use this review as an opportunity to improve the current access to short-notice leave for our members. We will also continue to argue against the use of the 18% limit for leave in general, and the further restrictions placed on leave levels by this pilot.

Winter Leave 2016/17

Members in BSD should have submitted their requests for leave (with the exception of Christmas 2017) for the period November 16 to March 17. We raised concerns about the 18% limit still being applied, and that we did not want local managers going back asking anyone to change leave requests before we had chance to discuss any problem weeks with management at a national level. BSD management agreed to gather the data, share this with us and look at ways of accommodating the maximum number of leave requests. They agreed to look at the situation nationally, rather than site by site, if this helped, and that the 18% cap would also be looked at.

If any members have any views on the availability of short Notice leave they should contact the Branch Office.