Children’s services team managers and deputies at Bath & North East Somerset Council walk out in response to a job evaluation process they say incorrectly graded their roles, amid wider staff concerns over social care reform implementation.
Social work managers are striking in a dispute over how their employer has graded their roles, amid wider staff concerns over the authority’s implementation of children’s social care reforms.
Team managers and deputies in children’s services at Bath & North East Somerset Council claim the authority wrongly evaluated their roles under a pay and grading structure implemented last year as part of its “Being our Best” strategy.
This was designed to modernise and simplify job structures and make pay “fair and transparent” . It was based on the HAY job evaluation methodology owned by consultancy Korn Ferry.
The authority said 62% of its staff saw their pay increase as a result of the changes, with most of the others seeing no change and the remainder being given three years’ protection from salary cuts. However, the changes were implemented without union agreement, with UNISON members rejecting them in a consultative ballot.
Deputy managers and senior practitioners on same grade
According to the local UNISON branch, administrators, family support workers, social workers and senior practitioners in children’s services all got upgraded, which it said was “long overdue” and had helped make the authority more competitive on pay with respect to its neighbours.
However, team managers and deputies were not upgraded, leaving the latter on the same grade (10) as senior practitioners, despite them carrying line management responsibility, including for senior practitioners. Team managers were left on grade 11, just one grade above senior practitioners, despite being responsible for teams of at least 20 staff.
UNISON said that the council’s argument was that senior practitioners carried practice expertise and deputy team managers leadership responsibilities, and that both of these functions should be valued equally.
However, UNISON branch secretary Toni Mayo, a team manager herself, said: “In social work, if you’re a manager, you have to be an expert yourself.”
She added: “It means that if you get a promotion [from senior practitioner to deputy team manager], you won’t get a pay rise.”
Staff reject council payment to settle dispute
The dispute between the managers, represented by UNISON, and the council started in September 2025 and, after talks with mediation body ACAS failed to resolve it, staff voted unanimously to strike last month.
They were due to walk out on 3-4 and 12-13 March, but suspended these pending further talks at ACAS. According to UNISON, the council then re-evaluated the roles and came up with the same outcome, and also offered the managers a one-off payment in return for ending the dispute.
However, the 28 deputy and team managers voted unanimously to reject the payment and, by an overwhelming majority, to strike.
In a statement, the managers said: “Having sought independent advice from UNISON experts specialising in the HAY model, we are confident that this process could not have been carried out fairly or in accordance with the framework.
Managers ‘will not be bought off’ as council urges further talks
“We are under no illusion: a single day of strike action will not deliver the permanent grade changes our roles deserve. But it will send a clear message to the council: we do not agree to end the dispute [and] we will not be bought off.”
In response, a council spokesperson said: “We’re disappointed that Unison is going ahead with its strike. The council greatly values its children’s team managers and deputy team managers and has worked hard to explore options to avoid industrial action, including holding extensive talks at ACAS with these colleagues.
“We remain at the negotiating table to find a solution children and families are the priority for all of us and to that end we want to work through this to come to a resolution.”
Concerns over children’s social care reform implementation
The strike comes against the backdrop of significant staff concerns about the council’s implementation of the Department for Education’s Families First Partnership (FFP) programme.
The programme involves the establishment of multidisciplinary family help teams, to improve family support, multi-agency child protection teams, to enhance the quality of safeguarding, and family group decision making services, to enable family networks to form plans for the welfare of children where there are concerns.
At the start of this month, Bath & North East Somerset Council launched a formal consultation with staff over changes to their roles designed to implement the reforms.
Authority accused of ‘fire and rehire process’
According to UNISON:
- Many staff have been told that their jobs are being deleted and that they will have to reapply for roles, in an apparent “fire and rehire” process. In more than one case this has happened to a staff member on maternity leave, which the union said was unlawful.
- One team is going from six managers down to three, despite having a full workload.
- Some staff are facing pay cuts.
- There is a lack of clarity about how the changes will affect staff on fixed-term contracts, part-time workers, long-term agency workers or those on secondments.
UNISON urge halt to consultation
The union has also attacked the way the process has been handled, saying staff were sent emails about the changes on Monday 2 March after working hours, with no management support, as managers were not aware of the plans, causing great distress.
It added that the emails were full of errors and many had to be reissued, though with inaccuracies not fully corrected in some cases.
UNISON is currently balloting members for their views on the issue and whether they would be prepared to strike over it. The union, which is calling for the consultation to be halted, is holding a demonstration today outside the authority’s offices, to coincide a meeting of the full council.
Council urges staff engagement
The council spokesperson said it was consulting on a restructure in relation to “proposals to improve services for children and families”.
“We are currently consulting with 350 staff on the best way to do this,” she added. “While no decisions have been made yet, the current proposals have put five members of staff at risk of redundancy.
“The 45-day consultation period is there to ensure we hear views from staff about the best way to deliver reforms that we believe will deliver better results for children and young people across Bath & North East Somerset. We welcome staff members’ engagement with the consultation to help us make the best possible decisions.”
Source: Community Care, Mithran Samuel
