Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969

CA-00026156-001

08/02/2019

The complainant submitted a claim to the WRC on 8th February 2019 seeking the application of Circular 008/2018 which relates to payments for ICT out of hours emergency on-call services.   A hearing of this matter took place on the 16th of May 2019.

The worker submits that,

He is an ICT officer for the respondent’s urgent out of hours GP service and provides on call ICT support for the out of hours service,

He has requested to have the new ICT On Call rate applied to his post in accordance with Circular 008/2018 and it has been refused,

he thus has been excluded from the benefits/enhanced renumeration.

The employer submits that

The worker, Mr. A has submitted a claim seeking the application of Circular 008/2018 which relates to payments for ICT out of hours emergency on-call services within the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OoCIO),

On 24th July 2018 the worker submitted an email to Mr. D, Head of Primary Care Services seeking that the Circular 008/2018 HSE/ICT Out of Hours Emergency on Call be applied to him,

Having considered his request Mr. D wrote to the worker advising that the worker was not entitled to have Circular 008/2018 applied to him,

The Claimant has been paid correctly in accordance with the standardised agreed allowance properly payable to him and his colleagues. He does not report to the OoCIO and does not participate in the national rota.

Concession of this claim would have national implications for the respondent. The claim is a cost increasing claim and is precluded under the PSA.            

The worker Mr. A has submitted a claim seeking the application of Circular 008/2018 which relates to payments for ICT out of hours emergency on-call services within the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OOCIO).   The complainant advised the hearing that he has provided ICT support for 12 years on a 7-day week basis.

On 24th July 2018 the claimant submitted an email to Mr. D, Head of Primary Care Services seeking that the Circular 008/2018 HSE/ICT Out of Hours Emergency on Call be applied to him. Mr D responded to the claimant on 3rd August 2018 requesting that he provide a submission setting out specific details to allow the Head of Service consider this request. This submission was sent by the claimant via email dated 7th August 2018. By letter dated 27th December 2018 Mr. D   wrote to the claimant and set out his position on the matter advising that the worker was not entitled to have Circular 008/2018 applied to him.  The claimant submits that the circular does not provide an exhaustive list of persons to be covered by the circular.

The hearing was advised that prior to Circular 008/2018, ICT out of hours support provision was characterised by multiple ad-hoc arrangements which varied significantly in quality, management oversight and in-service provision. As a consequence of the unstructured approach, services were left with limited or uncertain ICT support service out of hours, and in some circumstances with no service at all. As demands increased, the need arose for a robust agreement to provide a standardised, nationalised ICT out of hours support structure/service. On 15th February 2018 the National Director of Human Resources, Ms. R, issued Circular 008/2018 which set out the new out of hours ICT emergency on call arrangements. This Circular was applied retrospectively from 1st August 2017.

The respondent advised the hearing that on foot of the agreement and circular, the current out of hour’s service is provided nationally by staff working directly in the Office of the Chief Information Officer Service (“OoCIO”).     There are 27 staff participating in the rota and two staff are on call for the country at any one time. There is an escalation pathway for the staff on call and the incidents dealt with are only those of a critical nature i.e. national network outage, virus on national systems etc. It does not deal with standard ICT issues such as login issues, printer issues or any issues which can hold until the next service day.

It is submitted that the claimant worked in the GP Out of Hour’s Service as an administrative Grade V when he submitted his claim. In his role he supported the IT function locally.   The respondent submits s that this entailed non-critical issues such as laptops not switching on, printer issues, logon issues etc.                 The local IT support which was carried out by the claimant is provided in the relevant area by two staff members who are both paid an allowance in accordance with the relevant Departments consolidated Salary Scales.     This allowance is also paid to a number of staff working in the GP Out of Hour’s Service in other regions who carry out the same role as the claimant. The claimant is in receipt of this allowance.

The respondent advised the hearing that the fact that this allowance is still recognised within the salary scales is an indication that there is a difference between the role of National Emergency IT support and the role of the local staff including the claimant who provide non-emergency IT support.

The Circular 008/2018 is a standalone circular and is not included in the relevant Department’s salary scales as it is only applicable to those who carry out critical out of hour’s emergency support nationally. There is no requirement for this support to be provided by OoCIO to the GP Out of Hour’s Service as they have this support provided by an external company, company H for the one system they use.

The GP Out of Hour’s Service uses the IT system which is fully supported by an external company, company H. This is regarded as the critical cover for this system. The respondent pays a substantial annual fee for the service provided by company H.

The respondent submits that the claimant was not providing critical emergency cover comparable to the staff who are on the rota nationally. An analysis carried out of the claimant’s callouts, which he provided to his line manager, indicates the times, duration and types of calls dealt with by the claimant. There are very few calls during the week and very few calls after 11pm. Of note the latest callout dealt with was at 11.18pm. Most of the callouts occurred at weekends predominantly Saturdays. The complainant advised the hearing that this analysis only covers a specific limited time period for which he was specifically asked to provide details.  The claimant added that he has an exhaustive list of call outs handled by him and details of how much time each issue required. He also added that some of these calls were received by him at 3 or 4 am. The respondent stated that the complainant should not be handling such a level of queries or issues as company H is employed to cover critical issues with that system. The respondent added that many of the incidents the complainant responded to were not emergencies and could and should have been dealt with during normal work hours and did not require to be dealt with as emergency call out services as they were not in fact emergencies.

Since the claimant has moved to a new role in February of 2019 there have been only three calls for support out of hours. Two were dealt with by company H and the third was deemed non-critical and was deferred until the next working day. The worker at the hearing clarified that this analysis only related to a given period for which he was asked from February 2019.

Circular 008/2018 states

“I wish to advise that the (respondent) and (the relevant Department) have approved a new out of hours ICT emergency on call service managed through the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OoCIO)……As part of this service plans have been drawn up by the OoCIO for the implementation of the …. agreement to provide emergency out of hours cover on a full seven-day basis set out as below.”

The respondent advised the hearing that the claimant is not managed by OoCIO and has no reporting relationship with the OoCIO. The claimant reported directly to the manager of the GP Out of Hour’s Service and did not provide any statistics of out of hours calls to OoCIO.

In an email from the relevant government department on the 29th of September 2017 it is clear that the approval for the out of hour’s agreement is contingent on the costs being carried from within the existing budget of the ICT Department. It is clear that no approval was given for the agreement and the allowance to be payable outside of the OoCIO.

The respondent advised the hearing that concession of the claimant’s claim would lead to inevitable claims from all grades of staff who provide out of hour’s cover. This not only applies to IT support but also potentially to maintenance and other staff grades currently in receipt of the properly payable allowance as set out in the relevant department’s salary scales. This would have an immediate serious impact on the finances of the respondent.

The claim as presented is a cost increasing claim and is precluded under the terms of the Public Service Agreement (“PSA”).

The respondent stated that it has carried out an analysis and can confirm that only staff who work in the OoCIO and participate on the national rota are in receipt of the payment as per Circular 008/2018.

It is further submitted that should the complainant’s union believe that the claimant is entitled to be paid the new rates as set out in Circular 008/2018 they should engage nationally on behalf of all staff who are likely to be affected. It has to be asked why the union did not negotiate on behalf of these staff when they were engaged in the national negotiations with the OoCIO.

It is submitted that the Claimant has been paid correctly in accordance with the standardised agreed allowance properly payable to him and his colleagues. He does not report to the OoCIO and does not participate in the national rota.   Concession of this claim would have national implications for the respondent. The claim is a cost increasing claim and is precluded under the PSA.        

Having considered the arguments advanced by both parties I do not recommend in favour of the complainant in respect of this matter.

I do not recommend in favour of the complainant.