BBC Lay Reps blog

The first six months of the year have been dominated in my areas of responsibility by changes proposed to the Arabic Radio service with the launch of an Arabic TV service. A number of meetings have taken place, at which both BECTU and the NUJ were represented.

Many hours have been spent discussing the fine detail of rota patterns, start and end times of the night shifts and so on. Virtually all the staff affected are NUJ members.To date the whole process verges on a failure to agree.

Value for Money: I am dealing with two potential redundancies under this heading. These are on the brink of receiving warning notice of Final Notice.

As noted in my last report, acting up and attachments were a big issue during VfM, particularly in Factual.

The BBC has now started a process of boarding those who have been acting or attached, with a view to appointing them substantively to the acting/ attached posts.

In English regions “Trials” and “Pilots” continue to burst forth in quantities.

Sadly, despite all their rhetoric, management still failed to advise us of all these in advance. There have therefore been some urgent discussions on several occasions to try and control the issues.

After an initial burst of posting to the Lay Reps Blog, I have to admit that I have fallen behind with this in recent weeks. I intend to rectify this shortly.

I have a variety of Personal Cases on the go. Having returned from leave in early June, there seemed to be a flurry of members in trouble, so the number of live cases has risen to about 33.

The general business of attending Local Liaison Meetings where possible has continued. Industrial Relations remain strained in BBC South West. Having been improving, recent actions by a Managing Editor have inflamed tempers and raised the temperature again. Work is in hand to try and encourage the HRLP to manage his managers more successfully!

In Audio & Music in the early part of the year, the “AP Dispute” continued in 6 Music. After several very grumpy and tense meetings with local management, their “deal” for converting Researchers and BAs to Assistant Producers was roundly rejected by members. The management took the offer off the table with veiled warnings that they’d be back sometime in the future.

Finally, with Dave Langton’s departure to Cardiff, the reins of Branch Chair were picked up by Ben Honeybone. Can I wish him good luck and success.

My thanks to Dave for a well run ship over many years!

Meetings

Below is a list of the formal meetings attended with Management in my areas of responsibility:

Personal Cases

Ordered by Division:

Pensions

Finally, as a Member Elected Trustee of the BBC Pension Fund, I attended a number of meetings. These are included for completeness:

Updated July 17th