QUARTERLY JOINT STAFFING WATCH: SCOTLAND: GUIDANCE

GENERAL

The quarterly Joint Staffing Watch survey is designed to provide authorities, and the
public, with regular, consistent information on local authority staff numbers by main
local authority service.

Summary information by authority will be published by the Scottish Government.

Each Local Authority may request copies of data that is not published.

INFORMATION BY SERVICE GROUP

From Q2 2011 local authorities are no longer required to provide information

by service group.

However, we would expect that the total local government total staff provided by
each local authority will be composed of staff in each of the individual service groups
i.e. teacher, teacher-other, social work, other.

Therefore, even though there is no longer any requirement for local authorities to
provide this disaggregated information to the SG, guidance on what criteria should
be applied when deciding what staff should be included in the JSW return (by service
group) are detailed in Annex A.

These are the same principles as applied when the information was collected by
service group. This guidance is most relevant to the teaching group where counting
staff is made more complicated by the large number of staff on temporary contracts.

Contents

1. Coverage................................................................................................................2
2. Full-time/ Part-time Employment.........................................................................3
3. Full-Time Equivalent.............................................................................................3
4. Permanent/ Temporary Employment/Zero Hours Contracts............................3
5. Staff working in more than one service group..................................................3
6. Movement in Numbers..........................................................................................3
7. Joint Arrangements..............................................................................................3

Annex A : Inclusion criteria by Service Group.......................................................5

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Joint Staffing Watch Guidance revised Q2 2013
1. Coverage
The return should cover employees paid as at the survey date. It is, therefore, a
snapshot as at a particular point in time.

Include:

- Permanent staff.
- Part time/ job share employees (see note 3).
- Casual/ temporary employees (see note 3 & 4).
- Fixed term contract staff, if on your payroll at the survey reference date.
- Those on government training programmes where they have a contract of
employment with your organisation.
- Staff employed under joint arrangement only if your council is responsible for
their remuneration.
- Staff on inward secondment from other organisations if on your payroll.

Exclude:

- Staff on outward secondment to other organisations who are not on your

payroll (e.g. Area Tourist Boards).
- Employees of Police, Fire, Forth and Tay Road Bridges and Valuation Joint
Boards. These statistics will be collected directly from the relevant Boards.
- Trainees within government training programmes if there is no contract of
employment with your organisation.
- Volunteers if not on the payroll.

Persons in Receipt of Occasional Remuneration

- such staff, e.g. Childminders, Neighbourhood Aides, Street Wardens, etc.

who may receive occasional remuneration from the department should not be
included unless they satisfy the description shown above under casual/
temporary employees.

Maternity/ Paternity Leave, Sick Leave, Special leave, Career Breaks

Employees on different types of leave should be treated in the following way:

All those on paid maternity or paternity leave should be included.

Those on unpaid maternity or paternity leave should be excluded.
All those on paid sick leave (being paid in either full or part) should be
included. All those on unpaid sick leave should be excluded.
All those on paid special leave should be included.
Those employees on short-term unpaid leave should be included if
they are on leave for a period less than their pay period they should
be included even if they are absent on the reference date. If they are
off for a period longer than their pay period then they should be
excluded (e.g. someone on a career break).

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Joint Staffing Watch Guidance revised Q2 2013
2. Full-time/ Part-time Employment

An employee working the normal working week is counted as one full-time

employee.

Anyone working less than the normal working week is counted as a part-time
employee.

3. Full-Time Equivalent

Full-time equivalent figures are based on converting part-time employees

hours into a full-time employees equivalent, and provide a better indicator of
total labour input than a simple headcount. Part-time, casual, and job share
employees will be expressed as a proportion of one and figures are to be
rounded to one decimal place. An example of how to calculate Full-time
equivalent figures is given in the return sheet.

The working week will vary between different categories of employee, e.g.
manual and salaried staff, but no attempt should be made to bring the
different categories of employee onto a common basis. All sessional
employees (e.g. evening class teachers, community education staff) should
be included within the return and the normal working week for APT & C staff
(e.g. 35 hours) used as the benchmark to calculate the full time equivalent.

4. Permanent/Temporary Employment/Zero Hours Contracts

Permanent employees include those that have a contract with no agreed

expiry date.
Employees with fixed-term contracts of more than 12 months should be
classed as permanent employees (regardless of the amount of time
remaining on the contract).

Temporary/ casual employees are those who do not have a permanent

contract, this also includes employees with fixed term contracts.
Employees with fixed-term contracts of 12 months or less should be classed
as temporary employees.

Zero Hours Contracts Casual employment and those only working on an

adhoc basis are difficult to categorise.
Those on zero hours contracts should be included if they were paid in the
pay period in which the snapshot date lies. Their FTE would be calculated
as the number of hours worked in the pay period divided by the normal full
time number of hours that would be worked in the pay period.

5. Movement in Numbers

A section of the form has been incorporated for councils to enter last quarters
figures and provide a brief explanation of any substantial increases or
decreases in numbers employed apart from movement due to seasonal
factors.
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Joint Staffing Watch Guidance revised Q2 2013
6. Joint Arrangements

To assist in interpreting statistics a section has been included where councils

are requested to indicate the significance on staffing numbers of any joint
arrangements operated with other councils. Details of such joint
arrangements would be appreciated. Where agreement has been reached
with all constituent councils, the council responsible for remuneration may
provide a separate analysis split between relevant councils of the numbers
employed and FTEs. To assist in presentation of the results of the survey full
detail in this respect must be provided over relevant service groups and
headcount and FTE analyses. It is suggested that when returning the
completed form to the Scottish Government, a copy of the relevant section is
also forwarded to the appropriate constituent councils.

If you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact:

Helen Kerr
Employability, Skills & Lifelong Learning Analysis
The Scottish Government
5 Atlantic Quay, 5th Floor
150 Broomielaw, Glasgow. G2 8LU
Tel: 0300 244 6773

Email: Helen.Kerr @scotland.gsi.gov.uk

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Joint Staffing Watch Guidance revised Q2 2013
Annex A : Inclusion criteria by service group

From Q2 2011 local authorities are no longer required to provide information

by service group.

However, we would expect that the total local government total staff provided by
each local authority will be composed of staff in each of the individual service groups
i.e. teacher, teacher-other, social work, other.

Therefore, even though there is no longer any requirement for local authorities to
provide this disaggregated information to the SG, guidance on what criteria should
be applied when deciding what staff should be included in the JSW return (by service
group) are detailed in this annex.

These are the same principles as applied when the information was collected by
service group (prior to Q2 2011). This guidance is most relevant to the teaching
group where counting staff is made more complicated by the large number of staff on
temporary contracts.

i. Education - Teachers

Figures for teachers should include only those paid and employed at the last pay
period for which pay has been computed at the date shown on the form. Exclude
any on supply lists and others like who were not employed at the pay period.

Difficulties have been experienced in the interpretation of supply teachers for

completion of the survey. For the sake of clarity, supply teachers should include all
teachers employed temporarily on short-term supply including both those employed
temporarily, on a full-time and on a part-time basis. If paid and employed at the last
pay period, all such short-term supply teachers should be included regardless of the
reason for short term cover being required. The count of supply teachers should
also include teachers employed temporarily for longer periods.

In showing the number of teachers, a part-time teacher who is also in full-time

employment of the authority should be counted only once, and in the full-time
capacity.

ii.Education - other staff

These should include the Director of Education and support staff, other education
department support staff, and staff providing educational support services, cultural
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Joint Staffing Watch Guidance revised Q2 2013
and youth services staff and school based administration and support staff. Staff in
DLO/DSO organisations providing cleaning, caretaking, catering services etc should
be included in the other line of the return.

iii. Social work

Include all social work services staff covering strategic/central & fieldwork, day care
& domiciliary, and residential. Staff involved include professional social workers,
administrative staff, home helps, staff in care centres and staff in residential
accommodation.

In some cases, services may have been restructured, resulting in some social work
services functions being provided by other departments. Where this is the case,
assistance should be sought (by the Director of Social Work, Chief Social Work
Officer or other responsible person) from all of the relevant departments or
services within the council to complete the template for social work staffing figures.

Similarly to education, include only those staff who have been paid and employed in
the last pay period for which pay has been computed at the date shown on the form.

iv. Other staff

This will include staff engaged in civil defence and emergency planning and non
DLO/DSO staff engaged in vehicles maintenance.

This will also include:

Corporate services, Central support services, Planning and economic development,

Housing, Roads and transport, Arts, sport and leisure, Libraries, museums and
galleries, Trading standards, Staff of district court, Environmental services

Construction staff were previously collected separately and also included in the Local
Authority other staff category. These should be included in the total staff figure.
There is no need to detail construction staff separately, as had been done prior to Q2
2011.

DLO/DSO

Include all staff employed in DLOs/DSOs on the contractor side. Where a

distinction is made, DLO/DSO client side staff should be included with the
appropriate service from which the DLO/DSO activity has been commissioned.

Where a joint board exists, constituent authorities should ignore this line; figures will
be returned by the joint board.

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Joint Staffing Watch Guidance revised Q2 2013