PCS Home Office Merseyside Branch Equality Advisory Committee

PCS Home Office Merseyside Branch launches a new equalities committee

Following a commitment made by the Branch Executive Committee at the 2020 AGM a new branch equalities advisory committee is to be launched. It has taken some time due to a number of obstacles, not least the COVID-19 pandemic, but we are now ready to go on 28 April.

The inaugural meeting of the PCS Home Office Merseyside Branch Equalities Advisory Committee will take place at 15:00 on Wednesday, 28 April 2021.

The committee has been set up to advise PCS Home Office Merseyside Branch Executive Committee (BEC) on issues that need to be raised with management or escalated further. The first meeting will last no more than 30 minutes and is hopefully timed to allow those working day and evening shift patterns to attend. PCS members who identify with one or more of the PCS equality streams or the Protected Characteristics defined under the Equalities Act 2010 are invited to attend.

Initially it is planned that the committee will meet quarterly and will highlight upcoming equality events while providing a forum for members to discuss general equality issues in our workplaces and how they can be addressed. Occasionally, the Branch Executive Committee may ask the group to consider specific issues and views will be reported back. Length, frequency and content of the meetings will be reviewed once we are up and running. If you would like to attend please click here to let us know. We will send joining details closer to the date.

We have explored paid time off for members to attend the meeting but the Home Office Employee Relations Team have said that "we are content to permit members unpaid time to attend these members meetings. We cannot agree paid time off for members to attend this sort of non-specific meeting – we only give paid time for members to attend union meetings in specific circumstances (e.g. to discuss a pay offer, or where they are part of a unit of redundancy and they want to attend a union meeting regarding that)." Regrettably, it seems that equality issues, even after Wendy Williams Lessons Learned Review, are not deemed "specific" enough by the Home Office.

Again, please click here to let us know that you want to attend so that we can send you joining details closer to the date. We look forward to seeing you there.