Staff
Bulletin
467
5th December 2012
Harmonisation of Research Council Employment Terms and Conditions
Please see the enclosed message to employees of all the Research Councils from the Chair
of the RCUK Management Side, which is negotiating potential changes to terms and
conditions of service for the 7 Research Councils. The MRC National Trade Union Side will
also be sending out a note related to this issue
The Research Councils agreed that, as part of the wider harmonisation agenda, a project
should be set up to develop a common set of employment terms and conditions for the
majority of Research Council staff.
The key objectives of the project are to:
avoid the duplication of administrative effort involved in both the Councils and the
SSC in having seven sets of terms and conditions across the Councils
simplify the process of managing terms and conditions
reduce costs
This is substantial task and the project group, comprising teams of HR staff from across the
Councils, have been working to construct a set of employment terms and related policies
which can be applied across all the Councils.
The project group has broken down its activity into ‘core’ and ‘non-core’ policies, with the
former category embracing the key elements of the employment contract e.g. the code of
conduct, annual and sick leave, discipline & grievance etc. Non-core policies cover other,
less central terms and conditions. The exercise does not include pay or pay -related terms
and conditions. There are also a few policies which currently lie outside the scope of the
exercise, mainly because of the difficulty of bringing together particularly divergent and/or
complex Research Council policies (e.g. redundancy, relocation).
The project group, supported by an implementation group, has now produced a set of draft
core terms and conditions. These are being discussed by a negotiating group representing
Management and the Trade Unions across all Councils. The group has been meeting
regularly over the last few months and aims to agree a common set of terms and conditions
by the end of March 2013. Good progress has been made, with a constructive approach
adopted by participants. Assuming agreement is reached, an implementation plan will be
developed, including establishing how the revised terms and conditions will be brought to
the notice of staff.
It is important to emphasise that the project aims to harmonise terms and conditions across
the Councils in a broadly neutral way. Employees can therefore rest assured that the
project is not designed to erode individual terms and conditions and was started before the
review of terms and conditions underway within the wider Civil Service.
A further update will be issued once the discussions with the Trade Unions are at a more
advanced stage.
Peter Swinburne
BBSRC
On behalf of RCUK Management Side
1