Government attacks on public sector facility time 



Union facility time has been under consistent attack since 2010, particularly in the public sector. However, levels of government hostility have escalated following the 2015 election.


In October 2012, the government severely limited the facility time of civil service trade union reps, including a complete ban on promotion for full-time reps. The then Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, boasted that since 2010, his government had “slashed the number of full-time taxpayer-funded union officials by over 90. By the second quarter of 2014 there were only 13 reps on full facility time in government departments, compared with 200 in November 2011. The number has since fallen to single figures. The number of general reps has also declined dramatically.



In England, facility time is also under attack in local government, with established collective agreements being undermined. The Local Government Transparency Code 2015 requires councils to publish detailed annual figures on union reps and trade union facility time, including:


• the number of staff (absolute number and full-time-equivalent (FTE)) who are union reps (including general reps, learning and health and safety reps);



• the number who devote at least 50% of their time to union duties;



• the names of all trade unions represented in the authority;



• a basic estimate of “spending on unions” (the number of full-time equivalent days spent on union duties by authority staff that spent the majority of their time on union duties, multiplied by the average salary); and



• a basic estimate of “spending on unions” as a percentage of the total pay bill (the number of full-time equivalent days spent on union duties by authority staff who spent the majority of their time on union duties, multiplied by the average salary and divided by the total pay bill.


The Code applies only to local councils in England.


An even more punitive approach to public sector facility time is taken in the Trade Union Act 2016 (section 13, TUA 16), which gives new powers to ministers to make regulations to require public sector employers (and private and voluntary sector employers that are mainly funded by the taxpayer) to publish detailed information about facility time.


Exercising these new powers, the government has enacted the Trade Union (Facility Time Publication Requirements) Regulations 2017, which became law on 1 April 2017. These regulations require public sector employers with more than 49 full-time equivalent trade union officials, in any seven of the twelve months starting on 1 April each year, to publish the following information on its website and in its annual report:


• number of employees who were union officials (reps and shop stewards) during the relevant period (including full-time equivalents);


• percentage of time spent on facility time (0%, 1%-50%, 51%-99% or 100% of working hours);


• percentage of total pay bill spent on facility time; and


• number of hours spent by relevant union officials on paid trade union activities as a percentage of total paid facility time hours.


The first reporting period begins on 1 April 2017.


The TUC and public sector employers were not consulted on these new regulations. They cover public sector bodies – not private or voluntary sector bodies providing public services.


In Wales, the Welsh Assembly is to enact a Trade Union (Wales) Bill to exclude regulations on reporting facility time in Wales. The First Minister for Wales has described the facility time provisions of the TUA 16 as “draconian” and likely to lead to a “confrontational relationship between employers and the workforce”, damaging to the delivery of public services.


The TUA 16 also contains a power to impose a cap on the total amount of paid facility time for any public sector employer, as a percentage of the total pay bill. The power can only be exercised after reviewing three years of data on facility time, following consultation with the relevant employer. There must be a 12-month notice period before any cap can be imposed.