220812ResourcesCtteePaper4AA35HourWeekV10

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY RESOURCES COM­MIT­TEE Paper 4 12 August 2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY RESOURCES COMMITTEE

FOR DIS­CUS­SION

Title: 35 HOUR WORK­ING WEEK

Pre­pared by: KATE CHRISTIE, HEAD OF ORGIN­ISA­TION­AL DEVELOPMENT

Pur­pose

This paper presents the pro­posed 35 hour work­ing week to the Board.

1. The ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG) Fin­ance Pay Policy (FPP) provided employ­ers with the dis­cre­tion to con­sider stand­ard­ising to a 35-hour work­ing week. This was set out expli­citly in the Policy and there was a strong expect­a­tion both in the Policy and sub­sequent dir­ect­ives from the fin­ance min­is­ter that organ­isa­tions should at the very least start con­sid­er­ing this dir­ec­tion of travel.

2. Resources Com­mit­tee (RC) con­sidered this pro­pos­al at its Octo­ber 2021 meet­ing and agreed that it would be appro­pri­ate at that stage to com­mence the dia­logue with staff on the mat­ter, without com­mit­ting to any course of action. RC agreed a set of ques­tions that would be posed to staff, and an ini­tial timetable that the earli­est point of imple­ment­a­tion if we were to pro­gress this dir­ec­tion would be from the start of the ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ fin­an­cial year.

3. These ques­tions were put to staff via Sur­vey­Mon­key and through vir­tu­al drop-in ses­sions with the HR team the response is set out in appendix 1.

4. The ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ FPP took mat­ters a step fur­ther, not only provid­ing employ­ers with the dis­cre­tion to con­sider stand­ard­ising to a 35-hour week, but also allowed the oppor­tun­ity for employ­ers to explore the pos­sib­il­it­ies of a four-day work­ing week.

5. Hav­ing com­pleted the sur­vey last year and par­ti­cip­at­ing in sev­er­al drop-in ses­sions to fur­ther explore staff views on this poten­tial change to con­trac­tu­al T’s and C’s, and pub­lic­a­tions to staff of the ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ FPP pro­pos­als in this regard, staff are now begin­ning to raise the mat­ter again and seek­ing an update on our approach and timetable for pro­gress­ing con­sid­er­a­tion of these mat­ters. In addi­tion, nation­al uni­on focus on this mat­ter, includ­ing aware­ness of the focus giv­en to 35-hour / 4‑day week con­sid­er­a­tions by Scot­tish Min­is­ters, sug­gests that we do need to revis­it the

6. con­ver­sa­tion, and start devel­op­ing our stra­tegic approach in this regard, par­tic­u­larly if we are aim­ing to devel­op a busi­ness case for imple­ment­a­tion in ²⁰²³⁄₂₄.

7. We have estab­lished from the FPP team that CNPA is one of only 3 NDPB’s who are still cur­rently on a 37.5 hour work­ing week. 5 organ­isa­tions have now used the FPP to move to a 35-hour week, with anoth­er one tak­ing a phased approach, redu­cing ini­tially to a 36-hour work­ing week. The table in appendix 2 sets out the cur­rent con­trac­tu­al hours across NDPBs.

8. 19 out of 52 NDPBs are now on a 35-work­ing week – i.e., 37%. 51% are on a 37-hour week, but indic­a­tions from the FPP are that sev­er­al of these organ­isa­tions are con­sid­er­ing the 35 hours week, and in the pro­cess of devel­op­ing busi­ness cases. It is inter­est­ing to note that many of our part­ner organ­isa­tion, the organ­isa­tions that we work closely with, are on 35-hour terms i.e., LLT­NPA, Nature.Scot, SLC, SEPA, HIE, Vis­itScot­land. Our staff there­fore have a ready and fre­quent com­par­at­or of work­ing hours and wider terms and con­di­tions drawn from organ­isa­tions with whom they work most frequently.

9. CNPA have recruited a sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber of staff over the last 18 months. We have noted an increase in the num­ber of applic­ant enquir­ies about the work­ing week. We had one applic­ant turn down an offer of appoint­ment due to the fact that their exist­ing employ­er offered a 35-hour week, and we have had sev­er­al new appoint­ments nego­ti­ate a high­er than band min­im­um start­ing salary due in part to the fact they were mov­ing from a 35-hour con­tract at their exist­ing employ­ers to a 37.5‑hour con­tract at the CNPA.

10. The ongo­ing and expec­ted future Scot­tish Min­is­ters’ policy there­fore con­tin­ues to focus on the move­ment toward a 35-hour week as a stand­ard con­trac­tu­al pos­i­tion, togeth­er with seek­ing a con­sid­er­a­tion of a four-day week. This nation­al policy pos­i­tion is rein­forced by a clear desire amongst uni­ons, and our staff group as expressed through ini­tial con­sulta­tions, to pur­sue these changes in terms and con­di­tions. The Author­ity, through its Resources Com­mit­tee, now there­fore needs to con­sider: a. Level of com­mit­ment to deliv­er a 35-hour work­ing week in the con­text of this pre­vail­ing Min­is­teri­al strategy. b. Key ele­ments of a busi­ness case to sup­port a move to a 35-hour work­ing week. c. The extent to which the evol­u­tion to a 4‑day week should be con­sidered as an ele­ment of this busi­ness case.

11. The key ele­ments of a busi­ness case sup­port­ing the move­ment toward a 35-hour work­ing week are those in the fol­low­ing list. These con­sid­er­a­tions have fre­quently been seen as ele­ments of oth­er organ­isa­tions’ busi­ness cases sup­port­ing a reduc­tion in the work­ing week through main­tain­ing pro­ductiv­ity from reduced hours based on:

    a. A sig­ni­fic­ant reduc­tion in non-pro­duct­ive time because of reduced busi­ness travel. b. Very low / reduced absence levels attrib­uted at least in part to an improved work and life bal­ance. c. Hybrid work­ing arrange­ments lead to more pro­duct­ive over­all staff time. A sig­ni­fic­antly great­er pro­por­tion of staff time is ori­ented to task and object­ive com­ple­tion, and away from more inform­al use of work time. d. Enhanced staff well­being, which is a pos­it­ive out­come, con­trib­utes to increased staff pro­ductiv­ity over the hours worked.

12. We are ask­ing RC to approve the devel­op­ment of a busi­ness plan for a 35-hour week pro­pos­al based on these con­sid­er­a­tions and for the RC mem­bers’ thoughts on the over­all dir­ec­tion of that busi­ness plan around the fol­low­ing key areas: -

    a. Options around a phased reduc­tion – the fol­low­ing examples have been provided for illus­trat­ive purposes

    i. 36 hours in year I and 35 in year 2.
    ii. 36.25 hours in year I and 35 hours in year 2 (e.g., cutting ¼ hour per day
    

    FTE for two con­sec­ut­ive years)?

    iii. The options above are based on a 2-year transition period. It should be
    

    noted that the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment FPP pref­er­ence is for a one-year trans­ition, but they have sug­ges­ted a trans­ition peri­od should not exceed 3 years. The ​“lin­ear” way to achieve the full reduc­tion over the max of 3 years could be a 50 minute reduc­tion per year: 36 hours 40 min year 1; 35 hours 50 minutes year 2; and 35 hours year 3. ; This would be an admin­is­trat­ive chal­lenge – a sim­pler altern­at­ive way of achiev­ing this over 3 years could be 37 hours in year 1, 36 in year 2 and 35 in year 3

    iv. Currently staff have the option to claim a 1/2 hour as their "active" flexi
    

    cred­it. So, staff who use this flexi cred­it work 37 hours and engage in activ­ity for ¹⁄₂ hour, paid time. Should a phased reduc­tion take this flexi cred­it time into account? E.g., there is a poten­tial option of redu­cing work­ing hours by e.g., I hour per week over the next two years, whilst still retain­ing the 30-minute act­ive cred­it for well­being pro­mo­tion, to leave us at 36.5 year I (so, 36 work­ing hours and 12 hour flexi cred­it) and 35.5 year 2. b. Impacts on part-time staff hours c. Impacts of increased vir­tu­al meet­ings on pro­ductiv­ity and staff time d. Impacts of reduc­tion in travel time on increased pro­ductiv­ity, in terms of less time lost due to travel, and also fin­an­cial sav­ings of reduced travel e. Impacts on staff well­being and work loads f. Poten­tial mit­ig­a­tion actions – e.g. reduc­tion in amounts of flexi and/​or annu­al leave carry for­ward. g. Equal­ity Impact Assess­ment (EqIA) – any spe­cif­ic factors which staff should bear in mind when under­tak­ing the EqlA around this policy development.

13. We pro­pose that the draft busi­ness is taken back to Resources Com­mit­tee for sign off pri­or to being shared with staff and SG.

Kate Christie 3 August 2022 katechristie@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Appendix I See attached.

Appendix 2

Pub­lic Body	Cur­rent Work­ing Hours
Air­port Man­age­ment Ser­vices Ltd	35
Archi­tec­ture and Design Scotland	37
Bord na Gaidhlig	37
Cairngorm Nation­al Park Authority	37.5
Cale­do­ni­an Mari­time Assets Ltd	37.5
Care Inspect­or­ate	35
Children’s Hear­ings Scotland	37
Com­munity Justice Scotland	37
Con­sumer Scotland	37
Cre­at­ive Scotland	36
Crown Estate Scotland	37
Crown Office and Pro­cur­at­or Fisc­al Service	37
Envir­on­ment­al Stand­ards Scotland	37
Forestry and Land Scotland	37
High­lands & Islands Air­ports Ltd	35
High­lands & Islands Enterprise	35
His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scotland	37
Inde­pend­ent Liv­ing Fund Scotland	37
Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Nation­al Park Authority	35
Men­tal Wel­fare Com­mis­sion for Scotland	37
Nation­al Gal­ler­ies of Scotland	37
Nation­al Lib­rary of Scotland	37
Nation­al Museums of Scotland	37
NatureScot (formerly SNH)	35
Police Invest­ig­a­tions & Review Commissioner	37
Redress Scot­land	37
Registers of Scotland	36
Risk Man­age­ment Authority	37
Roy­al Botan­ic Garden Edinburgh	37
Scot­tish Canals	37
Scot­tish Children’s Reporter’s Administration	35
Scot­tish Courts and Tribunal Service	37
Scot­tish Crim­in­al Cases Review Commission	37.5
Scot­tish Enterprise	35
Scot­tish Envir­on­ment Pro­tec­tion Agency	35
Scot­tish Forestry	37
Scot­tish Fund­ing Councils	36
Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Main	37
Scot­tish Land Commission	35
Scot­tish Leg­al Aid Board	37
Scot­tish Leg­al Com­plaints Commission	35
Scot­tish Nation­al Invest­ment Bank	35
Scot­tish Police Authority	35
Scot­tish Pris­on Service	37
Scot­tish Qual­i­fic­a­tions Authority	35
Scot­tish Social Ser­vices Council	35
Scot­tish Water	37
Skills Devel­op­ment Scotland	35
South of Scot­land Enterprise	35
sportScot­land	37
Vis­itScot­land	35
Water Industry Com­mis­sion for Scotland	35