Update from Project Board – 6 April 2018
Email sent on 6 April 2018
To: All staff and students
From: Self Delivery Project Board
Following the 28 March email from the Project Board Chair, as a Project Board we are sending this update to all members of the SOAS community on the self-delivery of facilities management and catering services at SOAS.
SOAS commitments and process
The commitments which the School entered into on 4 August 2017 – to stop outsourcing its core support services to private contractors from September 2018 – remain the guiding principles for the work of the project board, and the goals which we are aiming for.
These key commitments are:
- Our current Bouygues and Elior staff in central facilities teams will be directly employed by the university. This means they will be put on equal terms and conditions with existing SOAS employees.
- These are staff employed in outsourced cleaning; catering; conferencing and events hospitality; porters; security; mechanical and electrical services; post room; helpdesk and reception teams.
- All staff will be guaranteed equal pay and conditions to current SOAS employees, including sick pay, pensions and holiday entitlement.
- In addition, SOAS will be assessing a series of additional, highly specialised services which would be challenging to self-deliver. This includes lift maintenance; waste management; fire safety and protection; and independent inspections and testing required by law.
The process for achieving this is that the Project Board has oversight of the process of transition, with trades union and students’ union active members of the board and colleagues in professional services, working with Bouygues and Elior staff to ensure effective transfer of staff and services. This is a complex and detailed process. Further background on the project is on the self-delivery website.
Human Resources position
Following the recent period of industrial action, Rychard Scrase Field and senior members of the HR team have now met with Sandy Nicoll and Jo Galloway from Unison to discuss the School’s role in the formal transfer of staff from Bouyges and Elior, and the transfer to SOAS terms and conditions. We will of course be working closely with Bouyges and Elior, to ensure a smooth transition
This group will be meeting weekly as a precursor to more formal participation in the TUPE (ie the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations) consultation meetings with the current contractors (Bouygues and Elior) and their staff representatives, which we anticipate will commence in May, with individual consultation meetings taking place shortly afterwards
Our HR team confirm that in readiness for these meetings, we will be working with Unison to ensure that all existing contractual commitments are met in accordance with our obligations under TUPE and in line with SOAS terms and conditions. HR colleagues have already begun to draw up job descriptions and will share these with Unison shortly with a view to working together on grading all roles against the SOAS grading structure.
We are also engaging actively with HR colleagues at Bougyes and Elior, and are gathering up all available information on overtime, hours, patterns of work, contract formats and more, to make sure we know exactly how individual people work at the present time and so to ensure we plan properly for every individual member of staff coming to SOAS, and that each is assimilated properly and appropriately within our terms and conditions.
Service Workstreams
The Service Workstream sessions will recommence in early May and continue into June. As the HR-related discussions will have taken place with Unison during April, the workstreams will be able to focus on service matters as originally envisaged. As with the initial sessions, the six Service Workstreams remain unchanged and participants can review the original framework and subsequent Project Board updates for forthcoming topics.
Delivery of facilities services
A key consideration for the successful transfer of services is that the community should have continuity in the services provided once we reach September. Our goal therefore is to ensure a smooth transition so that cleaning, portering, security, postroom, reception and other services continue to be delivered effectively and consistently after 1 September.
Catering
Staff, students and visitors to SOAS have already provided very helpful input to the catering survey earlier this year, with over 1,000 responses received. This has enabled the team to have a good picture of what the community is looking for in relation to the provision of catering at SOAS. The next steps will be to provide feedback to the community on that range of information and set out options which can be used to inform the delivery of services in future. Updates on this will be provided later this month.
Continued communications commitment
We will continue to provide communications updates after each meeting of the Project Board and at least monthly. In addition, there will be detailed engagement with transferring staff in relation to TUPE and processes to bring them into the SOAS workforce.
This communication is also being sent to Bouygues and Elior staff at SOAS via their current management team.
Self-delivery Project Board