Hearing on pay equality in the Department for Transport

Preperations are made for a tribunal hearing on pay equality in the Department for Transport (DfT).

The case involves Executive Officers (EO) in the Driver and vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) who are seeking equal pay with driving examiners from the Driving Standards Agency (DSA).

For information, EOs are paid up to £5k less than examiners, even though they do work of equal value. The hearing is expected to be over a few weeks with an estimate end date of 22 May 2009.

The DfT's Defence:

... is one of arguing that the DVLA and DSA are seperate organisations whose pay is determined from different sources.

The other side:

This ignores the fact that both agencies are based within the DfT which is overseen by the Treasury which controls Civil Service pay. Unions have argues that if this defence is succesful, it will be used across the civil service to block equal pay claims.

Assembly IT: Surf's up for staff

Senior management of the Welsh Assembly Government are taking an increasingly harsh approach to abuses of the Assembly IT system; and even to information put up on the internet by staff in their own time or at home.

Throughout 2007 many staff have received final warnings for forwarding risque pictures by e-mail, and already this year PCS is supporting members facing disciplinary actions due to their use of IT. Management aren't interested in debating what is an inappropriate image. When it comes to IT they are the reincarnation of the Puritans. Understandably, they want to avoid what happened in the DVLA, where explicit images were circulated, leading to 18 sackings and another 148 staff being disciplined following a huge amount of negative media coverage.

Assembly Minister Brian Gibbons' act of online listening to 'The Archers' during a Senedd debate would have landed him with a disciplinary - were he an Assembly member of staff.

One of the biggest online developments in recent years has been the growth of social networking sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook. Here people create online profiles of themselves, exchange public messages and post photos and videos online. PCS strongly advise members not to declare that they work for the Assembly, especially if their members post compromising photos of themselves or make political statements.

Some companies even check peoples' online profiles, to vet if they are suitable for employment; and once an online profile has been set up it can be very difficult to remove. PCS urge members to be very careful as to what they say online, as some of their members have run into trouble and been subjected to disciplinary proceedings following comments made on blogs.

[Source: PCS Wales]