UPDATE ON GCC TALKS
APOLOGIES for the delay in posting an update.
We continue to have weekly meetings with GCC but these have mostly covered technical issues and have been hampered, not surprisingly, by holidays of representatives on both sides. They would have made very boring updates anyway.
There remain a number of issues to resolve including parity, data updates and the ALEO’s, confidentiality and new grade 6 posts. We are making progress but its hard work.
This week was the most important meeting as the Head of Finance attended and basically gave us details of the pot of money that they were hoping to use for the settlements. We clearly need to go away and consider our approach to this news. The number remains confidential but what I can say is it’s not as much as we hoped for but its more than we feared. It’s a number that we think that we can work with.
As always, the devil will be in the detail and more importantly whether the council adds unacceptable strings to the money. At the moment this is merely an indicative budget and no proposals have been made by either side, but these will come soon.
In the meantime, we (mainly Karl and me) are working on some modelling as to how this budget fits with the promise to honour the 2019 deal. It’s too early to comment on this but as you can imagine there is a hell of a lot of work that needs to be done
On balance it’s a step in the right direction. There is not much more I can say at this point.
The unions and the council will no doubt also be putting out their updates so keep an eye out.