Prospect Diamond June 2014 newsletter

Welcome to our third Prospect Diamond Branch Newsletter.

This month is a special Learning at Work Edition but we are also focusing on issues around parental leave, flexible working rights and pensions.

We have also highlighted some important events coming up in the near future. We have the Prospect Diamond Branch AGM at the end of June, Tolpuddle Festival in mid July and a major TUC March and Rally in October entitled Britain Needs a Payrise.

If you have any comments or suggestions about the newsletter then please send them to [email protected]

BranchNEWS

Prospect Diamond Light Source Branch Issue 3

www.prospect.org.uk ● June 2014

Prospect Learning Branch of the Year 2013!

In May 2008 Prospect launched its first ‘ULR of the Year’ award. The scheme aims to recognise ULR achievement and contribution to the skills agenda, chang-ing or improving members’ personal or professional lives. In addition, it serves to remind Prospect that much of the work is achieved through the dedication and competence of volunteers and thereby acts as a forum for the Union to acknowledge this and say “thank you” to the nominated ULRs and representatives for their hard work. Since 2008, the in-dividual ULR award has been bestowed 3 times and the Learning Branch of the Year 4 times.

Prospect Diamond Light Source Branch has been recognised as Learning Branch of the Year 2013 for the innovative and creative ways it has used the Learning at Work initiative to host not just a com-panywide, but campus wide science and general learning event, leading to 425 people participating in 2013. And, only recently, Diamond Branch hosted a week-long 2014 Learning at Work programme including talks, training sessions and workshops on subjects as diverse as Technician Registration to Geocaching to Jogging for beginners! These events, whilst orchestrated by Lloyd Collier, the

Prospect ULR, have been a joint activity – involving employer general support, Prospect financial and resource support, Diamond staff and local providers. The employer has acknowledged the company benefits that have flown from such activities, including increased staff morale and positive engagement to on-going business performance and there-fore was delighted to encourage and support the 2014 week long extrava-ganza.

Diamond Branch was also highly com-mended by NIACE - Open University as part of its 2013 Learning at Work Day Award for Inspiring Learning.

The award was announced at the recent

Prospect National Conference and in-

cludes a £200 charitable donation which

the branch committee have agreed to

donate to Ruskin College (Oxford) in

light of its status as an adult learning

college and its close ties with the trade

union movement. The donation will be

used to buy a range of books and/or

journals relating to the BA (Hons) Inter-

national Labour & Trade Unions Studies

course.

Lloyd Collier (Prospect Union Learning Rep) and Caroline Holmes (Ruskin Academic Coordinator)

Inside this issue:

Learning at Work Award 1

Learning at Work Week

2014 2-3

Parental Leave & Flexible

Working Rights 4

ERC View 5

Diamond branch AGM 5

TUC March & Rally 5

Pensions & retirement 6

Tolpuddle Festival 7

Reps Details 8

Learning at Work Special Edition

Prospect Diamond Light Source Branch Issue 3

www.prospect.org.uk ● June 2014

Learning at Work Week 2014

Following on from the successful 2013 Learning

at Work Day, Learning at Work Week 2014 was

recently hosted by Prospect at Diamond from

19th-23rd May. A range of seminars, training

and taster sessions were organised, with sub-

jects ranging from Technician Registration to

Geocaching to Jogging for beginners! These

events, whilst orchestrated by Lloyd Collier, the

Prospect ULR, were a joint activity involving the

Prospect Branch committee,, Prospect financial

and resource support, Diamond management

and staff support and local training and educa-

tion providers.

The event was again a great success with lots of

positive feedback. Over 500 employees from

Diamond and across the Harwell Campus took

part this year.

A selection of photos from the event can be

found here.

If you have any comments on how we can make

the event even better next year then please

email them to [email protected]

Atrium

Prospect Technicians

Technician Pathways

Open University

Financial advice

Museum of History of Science Science Council

Web editing

@ProspectDiamond

Prospect Diamond Light Source Branch Issue 3

www.prospect.org.uk ● June 2014

IMechE E-Proc

Weird Science

Science Council

Cycling Registered Scientist

Writing workshop Atrium

IET

The BookPeople Geocaching

CSSC

@ProspectDiamond

Parental Leave and Flexible Working rights

Recent changes extend employee entitle-ment to request flexible working and pro-vide more choice for parental leave, as Emma Nelmes (Prospect Executive Assis-tant) explains.

Parental Leave

Parental leave is defined as ‘leave taken to look after a child or to make arrangements for the good of the child’ which need not be connected to the child’s health. It has specifi-cally been designed to allow for flexibility. An employee is entitled to parental leave for each child born or adopted and they can take it at any time up to the child's fifth birthday (or until five years after placement in the case of adoption), or up to the child's 18th birthday if they have disabilities.

Parental leave should be taken in blocks of a week or multi-ples of a week, and should not be taken as individual days off, unless the employer agrees otherwise, or the child is disabled. Employees cannot take off more than four weeks during a year. A week is based on an employees working pattern.

An employee will remain employed while on parental leave and a period of leave will count as continuous service for the purposes of statutory employment protection rights, such as a right to a redundancy payment.

Under a new system of flexible parental leave, parents will be able to choose how they share care of their child in the first year after birth. Employed mothers will still be entitled to 52 weeks of maternity leave; however, working parents will be able to opt to share the leave. Mothers will have to take at least the initial two weeks of leave following the birth as a recovery period. Following that they can choose to end the maternity leave and the parents can opt to share the remaining leave as flexible parental leave.

Summary

· Employees must have completed one year's service with an employer to qualify.

· 18 weeks of unpaid leave can be taken up to the child's fifth birthday.

· Leave may be taken straight after the birth or adoption or following a period of maternity leave.

· Employees will need to request leave giving at least 21 days’ notice before the intended start date.

· Employers may ask for the notice to be in writing.

· Employees have the right to return to the same job in which they were employed before the ab-sence, unless it is not reasonably practicable for the employer to permit the employee to return to that job.

Flexible Working

There are many forms of flexible working. Flexible working can include; home-working, temporary contracts, part-time working, staggered hours, compressed working hours, flexi-time, job sharing, shift working or career breaks. The re-quest can cover hours of work, times of work, place of work or different patterns of work.

On 30 June 2014 the Flexible Working Regulations will be extended to cover all employees after 26 weeks' service, rather than only those with children under the age of 17 (or 18 if the child is disabled) and certain carers.

Summary

· Employees must have 26 weeks continuous em-ployment at the date the application is made.

· Employers have statutory duty to consider appli-cations.

· Once agreed it becomes a permanent change to the contract of employment.

· An employee has the right to appeal if necessary against the outcome.

· An employee is able to negotiate an agreement if the requested hours are not possible.

· Only one application can be made in a 12 months period.

How to Request Parental Leave and Flexible Working

1. The request must be in writing. The employee must state their relationship to the child and give a proposed start date. The employee will also need to advise of any previous application made, and if so when. The application must set out what effect the flexible working pattern will have on the organisation, and how in their opinion, any such effect may be dealt with.

2. The employer must consider the request seriously, and can refuse it if there are clear business grounds for doing so. When attending a meeting to consider the appli-cation the employee has the right to be accompanied at the meeting by a fellow employee or trade union representa-tive. The meeting must be held within 28 days of the date on which the application has been made, and must be con-venient to both the employer and the employee. The em-ployer’s decision must then be provided in writing within 14 days of the meeting.

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Prospect Diamond Light Source Branch Issue 3

www.prospect.org.uk ● June 2014

3. The 2007 Work and Families Act also introduced a new right for carers of adults to request to work flexibly. A 'carer' is defined as an employee who is or expects to be caring for an adult who:

· Is married to, or the partner or civil partner of the em-ployee

· Is a near relative of the employee

· Falls into neither category but lives at the same address as the employee.

4. The 'near relative' definition includes parents, parent-in-law, adult child, adopted adult child, siblings (including those who are in-laws), uncles, aunts or grandparents and step-relatives.

5. There is no obligation by the employee to state the spe-cific care they provide to the adult in question. The type of care provided can include (but is not exhaustive):

· Help with personal care

· Help with mobility

· Housekeeping

· Nursing tasks

· Help with financial matters or paperwork

· Escorting them to doctors’ appointments

· Giving/supervising medicines

· Providing emotional support/company.

Further information can be found in the following Prospect Mem-bers’ Guides:

· Parental and Family Leave – Members’ Guide 12

· Part time and Flexible Working – Members’ Guide 16

· Your Legal Rights at Work – Members’ Factcard 1

ERC View Regular spot for our Prospect ERC Reps to report back to members from the most recent ERC meeting

Social media policies will be released soon, and we encourage all members to read the policies especially if they are users for Facebook, Twitter, etc.

The company have placed a hold on work experi-ence placements for 2014. The communica-tions team are looking at implementing an up-dated system, hopefully by the autumn. If you have children that you would like to organise work placements for, then they will need to be registered with the company. We encourage all members to help with the work experience pro-gram where they can.

Some time ago, we raised the issue of training and development at Diamond, and the company have not been able to respond for one reason and another. We hope that this will be progressed by the end of the year.

It looks like the pay and grading review will finally get underway with the directors meeting soon to discuss the topic. We submitted our views quite some time ago. We have also commented that we would set up a sub-committee to air the views on the review.

Finally, the company has set up a cycle to work scheme. It took a change of CEO to achieve this. It would be good to see the scheme take-off and be a success at Diamond.

The discretionary pay review has been partially completed. We continue to monitor the process.

If any members have any issues that they would like raised at the ERC, then please contact a Rep.

If any members have issues with pay, grading or job descriptions, etc, then please contact a Rep.

Prospect Diamond Light Source Branch Issue 3

www.prospect.org.uk ● June 2014

AGM Reminder Friday 27th June, 12.15pm, Diamond House G59

All members are encouraged to attend. Light sandwich lunch provided.

Pensions & Retirement Scott Fleming and Richard Moore, experienced senior financial advisers with Lighthouse Financial Advice have agreed to pro-vide regular updates for members (through the pages of our newsletters). In this article Richard looks at the potential issues for people who are in or approaching retirement.

Retirement The retirement date and taking a pension is one of those times that some people look forward to and some dread. It is one of the major crossroads in life after marriage, the first child and buying the first house.

Many issues have to be considered and confronted and not taking action isn’t really an option.

Probable issues are:

Shall I take the tax free lump sum from my pension?

How much lump sum should I take? What should I do with it?

How can I generate a tax free income to boost my retire-ment income?

How can I reduce my expenditure?

How will the recently announced changes to pensions’ leg-islation affect me?

Shall I use my home to generate an income or pay for that special project?

Should I review the performance and appropriateness of my savings and investments?

Should I clear debts and mortgages?

Should I review my tax situation?

Will I or my children have to pay Inheritance Tax?

Is my Will up to date?

Can I afford to finance Long Term Care if I or a relative needs nursing or residential care?

Have I prepared for funeral costs?

Who has control of my healthcare and finances if I become ill?

If you need the answer to or assistance with any of the above questions then one of our qualified advisors can help you. If you are a Prospect member who has concerns in an area for protecting their own future or that of parents or rela-tives, then one of our team would be happy to carry out an initial telephone consultation with you. There would be no charge to yourself for this initial service.

To take advantage of this service please contact our Client Services team on the freephone number 08000 85 85 90 quoting reference Prosp04

Lighthouse Financial Advice Limited is an appointed repre-sentative of Lighthouse Advisory Services Limited which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

Prospect Diamond Light Source Branch Issue 3

www.prospect.org.uk ● June 2014

Lloyd Collier, Prospect Diamond Branch Secretary, is or-ganising Prospect’s presence at the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival this year. The festival brings together thousands of people every July to celebrate trade unionism and to remember the sacrifice made by the six farm workers of Tolpuddle who were transported to Australia for defend-ing their union rights. This year Prospect members will be running a stall on Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 July and carrying the union’s banner during the procession on Sunday afternoon. All Prospect members and staff are encouraged to attend, take part, enjoy and celebrate our collective movement and achievements.

The event is free on Sunday (£10 parking) or tickets for the whole weekend can be bought on the festival web-site.

If you are interested in helping out over the weekend, please go to Prospect’s dedicated Facebook page or email Lloyd Collier, Prospect branch secretary at Diamond Light Source, for more information.

Lloyd, along with Prospect organiser Chris Perry, is mak-ing arrangements for our presence this year and is look-ing forward to a fantastic weekend of music, entertain-ment and debate.

He said: “The response from members to help on the stall has been great, although we could always do with more people to share the work around. Preparations are going well and I’m really looking forward to a great weekend working with and meeting other like-minded trade unionists and their families.” Find out more about the festival and what Prospect will be doing here

Your Reps