News – Page 39 – Stirling UNISON

Latest news in Early years

See below for the latest news in Early years including:

• Streptococcus A and scarlet fever – guidance for schools & early years
• Stars in Our Schools – thank you for making it such a great success
• UNISON’s housing survey

Streptococcus A (strep A) and scarlet fever – guidance for schools & early years

We are aware of increased concern regarding scarlet fever and group A strep infections, due to an increase in cases and the very sad news about the children who have died of invasive group A streptococcal infections (iGAS). Whilst cases of iGAS remain rare, we have been pressing the Department for Education (DfE) to send guidance to schools and early years settings. This has now been sent – please see the DfE Education Hub which includes links to UKHSA guidance on Managing outbreaks & incidents and Preventing & controlling infection.

UNISON has produced a short summary for branches, reps and members setting out what you need to know and what infection prevention measures your settings should be taking. These include additional cleaning, handwashing regimes, enhanced ventilation, updating risk assessments and calling on all those with symptoms to stay at home. These basic mitigations will also assist in relation to the risk of other infectious diseases such as flu, Covid-19 and norovirus.

The key message for branches is to share the Department for Education/devolved administration, UKHSA and UNISON guidance with schools and early years settings, and to follow up on any member concerns with schools.

Public health bodies in the devolved nations have also issued letters to all education and early years settings which can be requested from schools. In addition:

• Advice from Public Health Scotland can be found here.
• General advice from Public Health Wales can be found here.
• UNISON Northern Ireland has requested guidance from the Department of Education and the employing authority. Please keep an eye on the UNISON Northern Ireland website and social media.

Deduction error taken this month.

Due to a Stirling Council system error, many individuals who pay their monthly Unison membership directly via payroll have had a slightly higher deduction taken this month.

They have corrected the error and any monies deducted (approximately £5) will be automatically refunded in January’s salary.

You can check your payslip on Erin to see if you have been affected, and if you have any queries at all, then please contact payroll@stirling.gov.uk

Payroll is working hard to resolve this and is very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

H&S and Disabled Members webinar 09 Dec.

UNISON’s H&S Committee and its Disabled Members Committee planned to host a face-to-face webinar in December on several covid-related topics.

Unfortunately, due to planned rail action on Fridays/Saturdays throughout December, we have had to change this to an online MS Teams event.

We’ve also decided to split the content and run it over three separate webinars, with the remaining two taking place in the first half of 2023.

The webinar is being held on 9^th December 2023, between 10:30am to 12:30pm, and is an employment law session by Thompson’s solicitors giving you a chance to get some top advice in relation to covid-related cases you’re involved in, and will also include an update on emerging case law.

There will also be a very brief update on Year of Disabled Workers to advise you of some ‘asks’ that UNISON’s General Secretary Christina McAnea is asking of all branches.

Use this link to register: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/465070507407

We hope you register for the event and hope to see you on the 9th.

Hybrid Working/Return to the office from Home working

As you will be aware Stirling Council put in place Home and Hybrid Working Guidance some time ago to facilitate new ways of working and to enable the return to the workplace post covid. On the back of this, there has been work at a service level to consult with staff regarding what a return to work would look like for staff within services.

To date, TU’s other than having been reassured all staff were being engaged in this consultation has had little regard for feedback from services on what this would look like from service to service and how this will be managed given issues regarding office space, different ways of working from service to service, etc….. We raised this at the Council Tripartite yesterday on the back of rumours that had been circulating that all staff will be expected back in the office on some permanent/fixed basis within 2 weeks. This was confirmed in the meeting yesterday despite TU’s having had no sight of this communication and indeed service to service plans on what this will look like.

We have been advised that we will be sent this information and indeed the comm that has to go to all staff over the next week. Unfortunately at this stage, we cannot confirm what this will look like for individuals or services at this stage which we have to say is regretful.

We recognise that all workers are contracted to work from their place of work, however, we are concerned that expectations will have to be managed and some may not have their preferences met should they prefer hybrid or home working

We ask that if you have individual concerns regarding this that members contact us directly. In the meantime as soon as we have any further information we will update members at the soonest opportunity.