The National Chairman

ISSUE 45, 31st March 2009

TRUST AND CONFIDENCE

I am sure that many of you will have read the February/March issue of the Prison Service News, focusing on Building Confidence.

I have to say that if NOMS and the Prison Service are going to try and rebuild confidence, they have a lot to learn.

Last week we witnessed, first hand how NOMS and the Prisons Board treat their employees. They were quite content to allow almost 15,000 of their employees to go without their legal entitlement.
We have witnessed, first hand the debacle of thousands of letters being sent to home addresses in an attempt to influence our Workplace Ballot on the WfM Offer. However, we have not had one letter sent to members home addresses to explain why they were not going to pay increments on 1st April, I wonder why.
We still face the problems of an imposed Grievance Procedure, a Procedure that the Executive will monitor and challenge, as outlined in POA Circular 67/2009.
We now face the challenge of Clustering and the Benchmarking, Specification and Costing programme. These two processes will undoubtedly test the Trust and Confidence of every POA member, as NOMS and the Prison Service seek to achieve more for less.
We are about to embark in the consultation process in an attempt to see if there is any areas of dispute, where we can achieve change from the WfM Offer. Let no-one be under the impression that this is the POA re-negotiating on WfM. Again, this will test the Trust and Confidence of NOMS and the Prison Service.
The POA will put forward its Pay Submission to the Pay Review Body for 2009/10. The POA will be forced to trust in this organisation, to achieve a fair and independent pay rise for the professional men and women of the Service.

In closing, the short message I want to re-assure you all is, that you can and should Trust this NEC. You should have the Confidence in this Executive to act appropriately and deal with issues that are within our remit. We do not need to react all the time, but if the Trust and Confidence is not restored in our Employers and Government then they should not be surprised by our reaction.

Colin Moses
National Chairman

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