Council Members Update – Home Working Arrangements

Colleagues,

Further to the First Minister’s announcements on Tuesday, the council are planning to review existing home working arrangements. This is likely to only affect those members who are or can work from home. The aim will be to increase home working beyond existing levels. This review should be taking place now with changes coming into effect within the next couple of days.

UNISON’s position is very clear. Any member who can work from home should do so and should only report to their normal workplace if the duties they require to undertake cannot be done at home. This is very much in the spirit of the Scottish Government guidance. In practice this means that it is no longer acceptable for members to be told to attend their place of work because it is preferable, desirable or ‘more effective’.

This will mean that the balance of working at home/in the workplace may shift back to predominantly home working where this is practical – this will bring problems of its own which UNISON are addressing at a national level in terms of the increasing costs of home working coming into the winter.

Robin Taggart
Branch Secretary
Unison (Inverclyde Branch)
Old Library
30 Bawhirley Road,
Greenock
PA15 2BH