Rota Design for 2009 - North Western Deanery

Appendix EBanding Appeal GuidanceProtocol for the rebranding ofTraining grade postsIssue1. There has been some confusion and variablequality of process during the exercise to bringPRHO posts into compliance for the 1st August2001. As a result, the national issue of furtherjoint guidance and documentation is felt necessary.Action2. Regional Action Teams must:Ensure that in all instances where rebanding ofposts is carried out, the process as laid out in theattached proforma document is followed in allcases, and recorded using the proforma a copy ofwhich will be retained by the Regional ActionTeam together with supporting documentation.Background3. The procedure for re-banding existing posts is laidout in Advance Letter AL(MD)2001/01, in Termsand Conditions of Service, and added to by SteveBarnett’s letter to the service of 12 March 2001.The department and the BMA agree that amechanism which rebands posts using in-postmonitoring, rather than assessment of complianceon paper or using other theoretical means, is theproper way of proceeding in the vast majority ofcases. Such rebanding is most effectively carriedout midpost in, for example, May or November, toallow rotas to bed in and to allow ‘fine tuning’after monitoring. Both sides accept, however, thatthere will be a few occasions, where significantchanges to rotas or staffing levels make itimpractical to fully implement changes to workingpractices before new staff come into post, where itwill be necessary to assess the likely banding of arota in advance of its implementation, to allow anemployer to offer posts to new employees on arealistic basis.4. Such occasions will be rare. It cannot be taken forgranted, for example, that full shifts will always becompliant as natural breaks may not be achievedor shifts may overrun. Similarly, the restrequirements of other types of rota pattern cannotbe assumed and it will therefore not beappropriate to assume that particular workingpatterns can be offered at a predicted band.However where for example servicereconfiguration or merger means that it is notpossible to implement and monitor a full rotabefore it’s proposed date of introduction, thefacility is needed to allow an employer to offer apost at an expected band. This must be dependantupon the employer demonstrating to thesatisfaction of the Action Team that it was notpossible to implement a full rota in advance,although the employer should where possiblemake arrangements to test in advance those partsof the new arrangements most likely to be noncompliant. It also places a responsibility on theemployer to monitor and confirm the bandingwithin a fixed timescale following the introductionof the new working arrangements.5. The proforma attached covers the normalrebanding process, with the facility to allow for theprovisional rebanding of a post in advance ofpractical monitoring.6. As with all instances of backdating pay under thebanding system, repayment where a lower bandthat has been paid is subsequently found to beinappropriate must be paid from when salaries atthe provisional lower band were first paid62