HR wisdom needed re Continuous employment (sorry long)

[happy2bme]

I have worked for the public sector doing relief/bank shifts for the past 4 years, at times alongside other work/study and at times full time. Recently I have had 9 months maternity leave getting SMP (so I think this qualifies me as an employee?).

I have for the past month gone back to doing relief shifts since maternity pay ended. However my study has given me a qualification to move a step up, and I have registered with an agency. I have now been offered an agency post.

I am trying to work out the facts in my mind as to whether to accept the agency post. It will be an option to move into an enhanced role within the same local authority when I get the right job (just waiting for it to come up).

If (hypethetically) I went to the agency for 6 months and then back to the local authority into a permant position what would happen with;

• continuous service - after 5 years service employees get an extra week holiday

• pension - have paid into LGPS 6% of my earnings

are there any other factors that I need to consider?

thanks in advance

If you move to an agency position, for the purposes of statutory rights, you will almost certainly lose your continuous service and have to start again from zero if/when you return. I say almost certainly because there is some odd case law about agency staff and whether they might be employees of the end user, but it only applies in very specific circumstances and only if there is no gap between the jobs.

This means that, if you returned, you would have lost things like unfair dismissal protection, eligibility for statutory redundancy payments, etc and would have to build the service up again. The clock on continous service cannot be stopped and restarted - it is either continous or resets to zero.

In terms of local authority benefits - e.g. enhanced maternity pay or holidy - you would need to look at the policies. Some employers will add stints of employment together. Most won't.

In terms of the pension, I would expect you would be treated like any other leaver, and then like any other joiner, although unlike with the continuous service you wouldn't lose what you had accrued. However, if you are thinking of doing this I would suggest very strongly that you think about contacted the pension trustees or whoever you are meant to address questions to. Pensions can be really complicated and little decisions can make big cost differences!

HTH

Well if you're employed by the agency rather than the NHS, which I presume you would be, then technically you wouldn't have continuous service with the NHS, even if you then go back to working for them after 6 months break.

However it may well be the case that in a situation like that, the NHS would preserve your continous service as the break is short and obviously because you would still be working in the NHS iyswim?

It's really a question for your own HR department, as the answer will be NHS-specific. I do seem to remember that after short breaks the NHS do sometimes preserve continuity, but I've no idea about the terms, or whether being employed elsewhere would count, or whether your service would be 'frozen' while you are elsewhere and then started up again when you return.

So you need to ask your own HR really, unless someone who works in HR in the NHS pops up here.

I agree with what Flowery said. However, I would still be a bit cautious even if your employer says that they will preserve your continuous service. The Tribunals have made it very clear that, for things like unfair dismissal rights, it is a statutory test whether you have it or not and an employer cannot 'grant' it to you. They'd normally try and bend over backwards to protect you another way if the employer had promised something they couldn't give (probably using the funny case law I mentioned above), but it's something to bear in mind if you think that there is any risk that the job you return to may not be secure (prob less of a risk in public sector than private, to be fair).

I just did a quick google of continuous service NHS and a load of policies came up. The NHS is great for having policies accessible on the internet ime. The policies also tend to be, er, longwinded comprehensive as well.

The first one that came up had a definition of continous service as being with breaks of less than a year.

Try googling your own NHS trust and continuous service and you'll probably get the policy come up.

Thank you Ribena and Flowery - am still trying to get my head around whether to go with the agency or not - still I have a few weeks to decide.

Also if I continued to take on 1 bank shift a month, while working for the agency would that preserve my continuous employment? (So long as I can get my head around tax and the like)

It's for local authority not NHS - and their HR policies are harder to obtain (am I right in thinking that they're different for each authority?)

Also am thinking of having another baby before too long - would this land me in a tricky situation if I moved?

Thanks again

I think basically you need to talk to someone in HR where you are tbh. You need to look at their maternity policy to see what the terms and conditions are for their maternity pay over and above SMP and need to find out about continuous employment. I'd say that if you work for them as well as another employer, your continuous service will be preserved but really you need to talk to them to find out more about it.

What Flowery said

Thank you both for all your help - much appreciated