Terms of Reference for the Staff Consultation and Negotiating Forum

Constitution

The Staff Consultation and Negotiating Forum (SCNF) will comprise five Members of the FRA, seven FBU representatives, two RFU representatives, and two Unison representatives.

Terms of Reference

To provide a regular means of communication and consultation between Members of the FRA and representatives elected by its employees on matters related to employment and the implications for employees of changes in service delivery.  Union representatives have the right to attend for consultation purposes, where the issues affect their members.

To carry out local negotiations on pay and conditions of employment subject to any necessary approval of the FRA.  The representatives of all unions affected by the issue may attend for collective bargaining purposes unless the involved union/s object.

To consider issues of dispute referred to it by the Consultation and Negotiating Group.

To make recommendations to the FRA on employee relations matters.
 
No matters relating to the circumstances of an individual employee can be
considered by the SCNF.  Individual grievances should be pursued through the Grievance Procedure.

Chair and Vice-Chair

The Chair will be appointed by the FRA.   The Vice Chair will be appointed by the trade union side. The FBU will hold this position more frequently than RFU and Unison since they have more representatives.

In the absence of the Chair, the Vice-Chair will be invited to chair the meeting.

 Officers

The Chief Fire Officer/Chief Executive, or their representative, together with other senior officers with knowledge of the issues under discussion will attend meetings of the Forum to act in an advisory capacity.

Each trade union may invite a full time official of their union to attend.

The Secretary to the Forum will be provided by the FRA.

Meetings

There will be a minimum of four scheduled meetings per year which may be cancelled if there are no items for consideration.  The Chair of the Forum will, at the request of either one third of the FRA members or one third of the nominated trade union representatives, call an urgent meeting of the Forum, normally within 21 working days of the receipt of the request.

There is no quorum, and no delegated powers to act.  Since the Forum is not a “committee of the Authority” for the purposes of the Access to Information Act it will meet in private.

Administration
 
Items for the Agenda must be sent to the Secretary to the Forum at least ten working days before the meeting. The agenda and any supporting papers will be sent to all members of the Forum at least five working days before the meeting.

The business of the meeting will be limited to those items which appear on the agenda, except that urgent business may be discussed at the request of either side.

Copies of the agreed minutes will be circulated to all members of the Forum and a copy will be placed on the Intranet.  Issues will be reported to the FRA, normally through the Human Resources Policy Committee.

External Assistance

Where one party considers that external assistance may assist in resolving an issue at corporate level it may request the agreement of the other parties to this approach, and no party will unreasonably withhold agreement to such a request.  Such a request shall be made within five working days of completion of discussion at the corporate stage.

In such circumstances the parties may jointly agree to refer the issue to:-

The NJC Joint Secretaries; and/or
ACAS; and/or
The NJC Resolution Advisory Panel (which shall comprise an  Independent Chair and the Joint Secretaries)
to assist the parties further with their negotiations.

The above should be completed within twenty working days of the request for external assistance being made.

Decisions

Any agreements reached at the Forum will be subject to the approval of the FRA where this is required.

If a difference remains unresolved, subject to the agreement of the parties, and the agreed terms of reference an issue may be referred to ACAS for settlement by arbitration.

Members:

Bloomer, L.W. Chairman Con
Mycock, B Con
Tagg, S Con
Davies, P.R. Lab
Sutton, D. Lib Dem