Early Years Expansion

Unison has been in talks with the council over the last few weeks about the expansion of early years and the effect that the enlargement of the service will have on Unison members.

The headlines for members working in early years are:

  • The expanded service will have 9 new manager posts, 98 new depute manager posts and 200 new lead practitioner posts. Internal recruitment will be used to fill them all.
  • Anyone not wanting to take up the new posts will remain on their same grade and working pattern. The service is telling us that they don’t anticipate having to ask people to move to other establishments if they want to keep their current post.
  • Contracts will be changed to reflect the requirement for all Early Years workers to be SSSC registered. There will be no other changes to contracts.
  • Nobody will be downgraded. Nobody who works term time will be forced to work 52 weeks, also nobody who currently works 52 weeks will be forced to work term time.

You will already be aware that Education managers need to seek permission from committee to roll out their plans for the expansion of early years provision in North Lanarkshire. A paper will go to Education Committee tomorrow.

If the paper is passed, the service will work towards a full implementation date of August 2020. You can read the paper here https://mars.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/egenda/images/att88746.pdf . The workforce report is towards the back of the document.

Hopefully this answers most question that people might have, but if not, please get in touch with the branch via email or phone, branchoffice@unisonnorthlan.org.uk 01698276291. We can answer questions via comments on posts.

Marie Quigley
Branch Secretary