Staff and Associate Specialist contract update
7 December 2007
Special Conference
Feedback from the SASC Special Conference held on 1 December has been positive. BMA House was fully booked, as were most of the 7 UK-wide webcast satellite events. The webcast was also watched live at home by nearly 400 people and many more people have watched it over the past week.
Presentations went ahead as planned, the contract detail was explained and delegates heard about the background, history and context of the negotiations. Interim survey results were presented, including the strong show in favour of re-engaging in talks with the government with the aim of taking the contract to ballot, and in favour of renegotiating certain aspects of the proposed deal in the event that the proposed contract deal is rejected.
The key messages for next steps from the Conference were that SASC should ensure the contract was released, using parliamentary and media pressure first, then re-engage and go to a ballot of all SAS doctors. If the ballot was rejected, the steer was to consider aspects for renegotiation. You can see all the presentations to the Conference as well as the webcast of the event here.
SAS Grade Survey
To date, SASC has received over a 1000 responses to our survey. So far, the interim report, shown to SASC UK on 5 December, confirmed a low morale amongst SAS doctors. Almost half of respondents agreed that the BMA should re-engage in talks with the government with the aim of taking the proposed contract deal to a ballot of SAS group doctors and dentists, and a further quarter of respondents agreed that the BMA should ballot SAS group doctors and dentists about further action, collective or otherwise.
Around half of respondents agreed that the next steps if the proposed contract deal is rejected, with or without a ballot, should be to seek to renegotiate certain aspects of the proposed deal. A further quarter of respondents agreed that the BMA should seek to negotiate an entirely new deal from scratch.
Regarding the forms of action that respondents would be prepared to take to achieve the desired next steps, around half would be prepared to write to their MP and a third would be prepared to work to rule/contract or march/demonstrate. Around a fifth of respondents would be prepared to refuse to carry out non-essential non-clinical duties, get involved in press activity or take strike action.
We are still accepting survey responses and the final report and analysis is not expected until January.
Contract Released
On the evening of 4 December SASC received a letter from Nic Greenfield (Director of Workforce at the Department of Health). The letter informed us that the contract proposals as set out in the summary agreement have now been ratified by the Government (in England). However, it also suggested a ‘transitional pay award’ and implementation from 1 April 2008.
The transitional implementation as suggested by the government gives both groups of doctors – Associate Specialists and the new Specialty Doctor grade – half their expected pay increase in year one (1st April 2008) and half in year two (1st April 2009). As stated in Nic Greenfield’s letter – ‘this differs from the submitted proposal, which would have given the full increase to Specialist Doctors in year one but would have delayed the increase for Associate Specialists to year two, but this is broadly cost neutral and does not significantly alter the cost of implementing the new arrangements’. The new proviso only affects the pay increase of the first increment uplift for all SAS doctors, and will not affect other elements of the proposal.
SASC UK
The Staff and Associate Specialist Committee (SASC UK) met on the 5 December and considered feedback from the Special Conference and the Survey. They also discussed the release of the contract. Although extremely disappointed with the new terms, SASC UK resolved to write to seek further clarification, expressing serious disappointment at the Government's late response and decision to undermine the negotiations process by imposing new arrangements. SASC UK also asked the Government to clarify various aspects before the contract could be taken to ballot. Clarification has been sought on the following:
- Clarification of the impact of phased pay increments on scale progression
- Assurances that if the ballot and/ or job plans have not been agreed by 1 April 2008 that all pay increases will be backdated to the Government’s implementation date
- Assurances that the Window of Opportunity will be effective from 1 April 2008 and clarification on the detail of this arrangement
- Assurances that the Government will engage fully in the agreement of outstanding areas of the TCS and associated documentation which are yet to be resolved with NHSe
- The position with regards to transitional arrangements in the devolved nations
DDRB
SASC gave oral evidence to the Doctors and Dentists Pay Review Body on 3 December. We followed this up with a letter sent on 10 December to clarify our position. SASC argued that SAS doctors are now two years behind in pay awards and that now it has been confirmed that the contract will be released prospectively. This in effect means that SAS doctors have not benefited from the progression, levels of seniority and increases in pay (on average 8.6% per doctor) that they had expected through the new contract since April 2006. The Review Body seemed sympathetic to the current situation of SAS doctors, particularly as they had very much expected the contract to have been ratified and gone to a ballot by now. SASC also highlighted the low morale of SAS doctors, as revealed in our survey of workload and career progression, and capping of potential earnings through the closure of the AS grade. We hope to hear back from DDRB in March 2008 when they release their final report.
Next steps
We now await a reply from the Government to our letter. Once clarification has been received, we will need to meet with NHS employers to discuss some of the detail. We hope to be able to meet with NHSe in January and February and, when the detail has been agreed, to send the finalised contract proposals to a ballot of all SAS doctors. This will of course be preceded by a full information campaign, the details of which we will confirm shortly.
In the meantime all SAS grade doctors need to ensure that their details are up to date and to register with the BMA if you haven’t already done so in order to be able to vote. You can do this on the BMA website or by phoning the membership department on (020) 7383 6642.
Press
You may have noticed some of the press about the recent events.
You can see the BMA Press release here.
BMA News also has extensive coverage which is available on the BMA website.