We are a national organisation and continue to take an equal approach to all staff, accepting the difference in funding approaches across Local Authorities. Differences cover almost everything in an ordinary budget but I take the example of staff training costs: We have a national policy to ensure equality of training opportunities across all staff, however we have to subsidise the costs through charitable income. Given the new national standards we expect the pressures on training budgets to increase and I wonder if other organisations had potential answers here? As far as I know neither the Scottish Executive nor the new Scottish Commission have announced any new funding for this. I would be very pleased if I had got this wrong and would welcome the views of others here.

The second issue relates to recent case law in sleepover payments and minimum wage regulation. We employ a number of staff who sleepover and we pay a flat rate of £25.80, but if disturbed during the night staff are then paid their usual hourly rate. Recent case law has found that staff should be paid for all the time they are present on premises, whether or not there is actual work to do. The flat rate falls below the minimum wage and so payment needs to be at least that. The debate would then follow where staff would be paid at their usual rate. The employer response is then likely to be that staff would not be paid at their usual rate for sleepover and simply revert to employing waking night staff instead. Again I would be grateful for any thoughts colleagues might have.

Gillian Morbey
Director
Sense Scotland.