Job Losses in Hackney BSF and RM?

[Grommit]

Was reading that Blog that Grumbledook did a link for and saw a question posted to the Blogger..

Jill... I undestand thet the BSF ICT Company will be taking over and controlling the Schools/ Boroughs Network..

I understad the Technicians might be TUPED over to the new company to be Toner Changers..

But whats going to happen to your Network Manager as he won't have a Network to Manage anymore and I doubt that he will be paid a Network Managers pay to change mice and keyboards.. ?
02 February 2008 07:38


Jill C said...
You're absolutely right. We have a team of 3 ICT staff, including our network manager. We will be going to 1 plus a technician shared with two other schools, although there may be a slightly higher level of staffing in the first instance. Obviously we're concerned about the drop in staffing levels, but RM say they have to make it work. Basically RM make their vacancy bulletin available from a point to be agreed with the school, and any of the technicians can start applying for posts anywhere. RM say (and I think it's true, not least because of the amount of BSF projects they're involved in) that there are lots of positions available, including international postings. Basically, though, BSF will be removing the strongest technical staff from schools unless schools can fund an additional post from their own budget and find a way to make it satisfying to the post holder. Personally I think this is likely to be detrimental to education in the long term.

What this says is that all staff won't be TUPED and that technicians are now at risk as well as the Network Managers...

1 school losing 1 NM and 1.5 Technicians ...

[MK-2]

You're job is safe, honest, we won't let you go...........now are there any buses that go from your house to Dubai? They need a mouse changing

[broc]

Originally Posted by MK-2

You're job is safe, honest, we won't let you go...........now are there any buses that go from your house to Dubai? They need a mouse changing

Always assuming the problem was reported first to the helpdesk in Mumbai

[psydii]

Perth actually. No relation to Hove. (south coast joke... sorry)

Grommit, the whole team is TUPEd and protected, but there is only 1.5 spaces in the structure within the school.

The whole team will be offered alternatives jobs, with no requirement to accept. The offers will be take into account the skill set and pay scale appropriate to individual.

This is in line with what EduGeek were told on the summer jolly to RM HQ.

[MK-2]

Originally Posted by psydii

the whole team is TUPEd and protected

The whole team will be offered alternatives jobs, with no requirement to accept.

so the whole team are protected, but could then be offered an alternative job somewhere they dont want to work, with no requirement to accept, which is then seen as voluntary redundancy.

We were told at our pre-bsf meeting that we would be tuped across but if we didn't agree to the jobs offered we could refuse and that would be seen as us opting out of the whole thing and bye bye job.
so in other words you're not really protected.

[broc]

The concept of 'protection' with respect to TUPE is a myth, designed to let the ex-employer sleep at nights having abdicated all responsibility for the loyal staff they used to employ.

[sahmeepee]

I recently read some guidance on the 2006 TUPE regulations (PDF) (now you know why i didn't post in the hobbies thread ). It's in fairly plain English, considering. The exemptions to do with economic factors are seemingly quite open to abuse by employers, but I'm not sure how it's panned out in court.

Also, recent case law is in the favour of the employee (see this blog posting about TUPE). Between the lines there is a hidden warning against taking a promotion from RM (say) if it isn't worth much - you will be signing away any beneficial terms of your original employment.

[CyberNerd]

Tupe doesn't protect against redundancy, all it means is that the new employer must disclose redundancy in the consultation process - the disclosure may not be obvious (hidden in a website saying how many techs they plan to have in each school). As long as (RM) have made this disclosure they are free to use Tupe to transfer employees and then make them redundant.

[Grommit]

Originally Posted by broc

The concept of 'protection' with respect to TUPE is a myth, designed to let the ex-employer sleep at nights having abdicated all responsibility for the loyal staff they used to employ.

Well i was paranoid about my role as Network Manager.. But now it seems there is going to be a massive cull of Technicians as well..

I was speaking to a LEA BSF advisor and he said that the schools because of the Managed services would not need so many technicians on the ground in one site...

[broc]

TUPE has three handy get out clauses for the employer:

1) Economic, which means if their business is losing money they can get rid of staff even though they are 'protected' by TUPE as the alternative is they go out of business.
2) Organisational, which means that they can decide to transfer jobs to other parts of the country; staff may be offered the chance to relocate but that is not always possible. Key staff may be offered relocation assistance, others may be offered nothing.
3) Technical, so that an organisation that inherits staff with skills regarded as 'outmoded' can make them redundant. So for example, a managed service provider delivering Unix based thin client solutions may decide they don't need large numbers of technicians & network managers who are Windows trained.

As an aside, if you look at what is happening with Single Status/Job evaluation across the UK, some Local Authorities are already threatening to dismiss large numbers of their staff to then re-employ them on inferior terms and conditions as a means of driving through contract changes. If the LAs are prepared to take these steps now they will not be too worried about those staff TUPE'd.....

Job security is a myth. Our employment laws make it far easier to get rid of staff than in France or Germany.

[broc]

Originally Posted by Grommit

I was speaking to a LEA BSF advisor and he said that the schools because of the Managed services would not need so many technicians on the ground in one site...

Sadly, I have had similar conversations, what is clear is that most of 'the experts' have little or no idea about how things really work in schools. Their view is that many of the issues we deal with day-to-day are simply down to lack of training for the end-users and they will not shift from this opinion. They really believe that one technician on site will be enough, in fact I was told that the school based technicians will be able to take calls from other schools in their spare time.

I have invited them to come into school & see for themselves how we spend our time.

I wonder why I have had no takers?

[Grommit]

Originally Posted by broc

Sadly, I have had similar conversations, what is clear is that most of 'the experts' have little or no idea about how things really work in schools. Their view is that many of the issues we deal with day-to-day are simply down to lack of training for the end-users and they will not shift from this opinion. They really believe that one technician on site will be enough, in fact I was told that the school based technicians will be able to take calls from other schools in their spare time.

I have invited them to come into school & see for themselves how we spend our time.

I wonder why I have had no takers?

Too bloody true....

Most of my day is spent repairing battered ICT Rooms...

1 Cover lesson in a ICT room causes more damage than a heard of Elephants.. and it takes an hour or 3 to get the room back into order..

Plus the Teachers with bad classroom management skills cause us no end of problems

[broc]

Don't worry.... putting ICT rooms back together will be history post BSF.

The way it has been explained to me:

BSF schools won't have ICT rooms (apart from small specialist suites for media studies, CAD etc). Students will all have individual handheld devices. When they break them the technician will be able to swap the broken one for a spare and send off the old one for repair.

Teachers will be expected to phone a helpdesk if they have a problem; the helpdesk will attempt to resolve the problem remotely, talking the teacher through the problem determination steps as necessary. If it cannot be fixed a technician will be scheduled to visit at some point to investigate further.

The days of the HT, SMT or even the school cat being able to stop the ICT technician/network manager in the corridor and ask for immediate 'attention' will be history too.

[webman]

I'm looking forward to laughing very hard and saying "We told you so" in 5-10 years' time.

[beeswax]

Teachers will be expected to phone a helpdesk if they have a problem; the helpdesk will attempt to resolve the problem remotely, talking the teacher through the problem determination steps as necessary. If it cannot be fixed a technician will be scheduled to visit at some point to investigate further.

The main problem I see here is that the teacher is on the point of delivering a lesson, and s/he isn't going to spend 10-15 minutes of that lesson on the phone to a help desk. Some staff may be snotty to techs, but at least we're on site ready to respond.