North Somerset UNISON's submission to the Agilisys Contract working group on 1st September is in part responsible for North Somerset Council's decision to postpone the vote to approve the Agilisys Contract extension from 23rd September to 21st October, when a special Council meeting will be called immediately after the already scheduled Executive meeting. The precise time is to be confirmed, but we need all UNISON members at the council to attend our lobby at 5.30 pm on 21st October.
North Somerset Council are planning to transfer more jobs and services to the private company Agilisys who are contracted by the council to run support services. They are specifically looking at transferring staff who have either a front office or business support function as part of their job. These staff are then likely to face redundancy soon after the transfer as Agilisys start to transform services. Council staff that remain will also see their jobs and services restructured as a result, and are also likely to find their workloads increasing when they lose their admin support. Agilisys are also being asked to work with the council on sharing services with other councils and the integration of health and social care. The proposal also involves a massive change to the way North Somerset citizens will access council services - mainly online access, and yet council service users haven't been consulted.
UNISON have told that council that we think services can be transformed in-house, at less risk to the council, and with equivalent if not greater savings. We also think that the council can manage any job losses through voluntary redundancy, retirement, redeployment and retraining. We will be lobbying the councillors on 21st October from 5.30 pm as they go into the council chamber. We will be urging them to keep council services in house - our message is TRANSFORM, DON'T TRANSFER. Please join us if you can.
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