Standing up for fair recruitment practices at Dumfries & Galloway Council

As the Council’s restructuring continues, the ways in which matching pools have been selected have varied widely from the Council’s actual procedures. UNISON Dumfries & Galloway is holding the Council to account to ensure fair recruitment practice.

Some Council staff feel they are being treated unfairly when it comes to job-matching and have shared their worries with UNISON. The majority of concerns centre on the matching, redeployment and internal-only recruitment processes:

Matching pools are too wide.

• Some individuals, for whom the new post includes only a very small part of their previous job, have been placed in matching pools alongside those for whom the new role would encompass most, or all, of their old job – leading to excessive numbers of candidates.

Inconsistent matching pool criteria across Council departments.

• Varying pay band criteria is being used with some departments including lower grades alongside those on the same grade as the new post and others not.
• The criteria for direct job matches are unclear with some departments advising UNISON that it doesn’t exist in the policy

Inconsistent recruitment from pools.

• Information from Personal Development Plans is not consistently applied.
• If a candidate is placed in a pool, by definition they must have the competence to be appointed, yet some posts are not being filled.
• The Trades Unions have agreed that when the appropriate qualifications are not held by successful applicants they will be paid at the grade below until the required qualification is achieved. This is not being consistently applied.

Appointments not being made from available pools.

When qualified internal applicants are available for internal-only posts, appointments not being made and jobs then advertised externally.

Candidates from the redeployment pool are not being appointed.

UNISON believes the Council’s recruitment policies are being applied inconsistently across departments and opportunities to make savings by protecting existing staff are being missed.

UNISON wants the Council to ensure clear and consistent processes are applied across all Departments. The Business Transformation Steering Group has agreed to UNISON’s request to prepare a report on our concerns to be brought forward to an urgent future meeting.

UNISON believes this would give staff the assurance that they are being treated fairly and not being disadvantaged.