Dear Southern Health and Social Care Trust (Northern Ireland),

Dear
On 4 March BSO wrote a letter to all care agencies in NI contracted by all Health Trusts in NI and wrote as follows:

"We would like to remind contracted suppliers of their obligations under the Framework and
the Agency Worker Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2011 to ensure that, in terms of the
payment of enhancements for unsocial hours, pay parity is applied to the hours 8.00pm-
6.00am for night shift workers as outlined in the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service
Handbook. We would like specifically to remind contracted suppliers of the following from the
Handbook:

Where a continuous night shift or evening shift on a weekday (other than a public holiday)
includes hours outside the period of 8pm to 6am, the enhancements should be applied to the
whole shift if more than half of the time falls between 8pm and 6am. "

*Please outline clearly and concisely without ambiguity, which care agencies have started to charge/invoice your trust at the correct night rate between 6-8am weeknights, given that 3 months have now passed since the letter was received.

*Please outline clearly which agencies have not started to invoice at the correct rate.

*If agencies have not and your Trust is aware of the reason why, please outline the reason.

*Please outline which agencies have submitted requests for backpay and if your Trust will oblige requests for backpay or not and if not , why not.

Yours faithfully,

Joan Corrigan

Dear Team, Foi,

Thank you for your response

However, your last answer is vague and unhelpful , so I am asking you to be more clear.

You state:

"To date no requests for back payment have been submitted.

Invoices will be accepted and reviewed by the Trust in line with the terms of the contract.

If an unreasonable amount of time has lapsed this would need to be reviewed. "

*BSO have made it clear in writing this year that "the terms of the contract" which discriminated against agency workers by paying them lower rates than their Trust colleagues, was wrong, and of note it is illegal as per Agency workers regulations.

1. Can the southern Trust explain why it had contracts with various agencies which featured and allowed and directed the practice of illegally underpaying agency workers?

2. Was the Southern Trust aware that pay parity was to be applied between 6am and 8am on weekday mornings?

and that this had not previously been made explicit by BSO on the rate cards provided throughout the current Framework?

If it was aware , why did it sign the contract? and previous contracts which may have also underpaid workers?

3. Now that BSO have made that clear to you, why is the Southern Trust referencing a contract/ contracts which either knowingly duped agencies, or, neglectfully flouted agency workers regulations, not to mention, withholding money from workers, as if those contracts must be adhered to, despite their being clearly flawed?

You reference the contract as if it contained the correct rates. It did not. Why then are you trying to honour a contract with incorrect rates?

4. What does the Southern Trust deem to be "an unreasonable amount of time lapsed" and what exactly does the southern Trust need to "review".

(The review which needs rectifying is the illegal underpaying of agency wokrers, not the lapse of time , not the length of time Trusts knowingly or otherwise paid two different rates at times to staff doing the same job

The "review" needs to be in terms of how and why this happened, not "if" or "when" they will backpay the staff underpaid whilst working on their premises whilst they were the Hirer, and "under what circumstances". The error is unequivocal.

The BSO letter was sent in March 2021 , it is now June 2021. Your Trust should have been liaising with agencies immediately to ensure backpay was, in fact, paid as soon as possible.

I look forward to your clarification.

Yours sincerely,

Joan Corrigan

Dear Southern Trust FOI Team
It seems nearly a year has gone by and no answer from yourselves? last message July 2021? I am revisiting this.

Do you intend to answer?
What has happened, another oversight?
If I have no received an answer by end March 2022, I will be contacting ICO.

Yours sincerely,

Joan Corrigan

Dear Team, Foi,
THIS FOI ANSWER ,ONE YEAR LATER, IS UNANSWERED

what are you hiding?

answer the question

under Internal review

Yours sincerely,

Joan Corrigan