Secondments and restructures

[Casserole]

Hi there, looking for advice please from any HR / employment law type people out there - my husband, who was previously working within a local government organisation at a "manager" level was seconded to become an acting "head of" within the same organisation 19 months ago.

There is a restructure under consultation at the moment. His current "head of" position is not in the new structure; no-one's is as the positions are being newly created.

There are enough positions for people overall, but not enough "head of"s.

He is being told that other head ofs are being ringfenced for the new head ofs positions, because they are in permanent contracts at that level.

He's been told that if he is unsuccessful in getting a head of position in the restructure that he will be expected to move back to his previous manager post, and his previous lower salary.

He did not sign any contract for the secondment, so his substantive post is the manager one, but he's not worked at that level for 19 months. Basically the person whose role it was before has left the organisation so it's been considered "his", but he's never signed any contract at that higher level.

My question is this:

Does he gain any rights because he's been working at that higher level for 19 months? and if so, do those rights extend to either payment protection in the event of being offered a lower post, or in terms of being ringfenced for a position at the level he's been working at?

Thanks for reading this far, hope it makes sense!

Why was it a secondment rather than a recruitment in the first place? Did he not have anything in writing at all? Usually you'd expect a secondment agreement which would cover all these issues so everyone's clear. Nothing?

Sigh. No contract about the secondment, no.

Initially it began because someone higher up took an external secondment, so then various people including DH backfilled the chain of vacancies that created if you get me.

Since being in that new post, the person who was previously in it left, so there was no-one coming back to it.

DH's manager left very suddenly and so he was also without a line manager for a while, hence why I think paperwork didn't move on. There is a new manager now but only an interim. It's them pushing the restructure so not inclined to start issuing contracts now I guess.

No letter, email or anything in writing at all referring to the change? What about verbally? When this all happened, what was the agreement, in terms of how long would it be for, that kind of thing?

My understanding is that he would be considered permanent in terms of employment law after 24 months. Less than that, he would not be ringfenced and could go back to his original band.

I'm NHS, but not HR or anything. I've got a similar situation with one of my team members and that's what I've told her.

Nothing in employment law saying that if someone is temporarily seconded to a different post for 24 months they automatically become permanent in that post, no.

The terms and conditions of the secondment are important, so if there was absolutely nothing in writing, anything verbal is a starting point in terms of what the anticipation was at the time the secondment started. If the anticipation was it would be for 6 months and he's still there 19 months later, that's important. If it was clear to all that it was for 20 months and at that point he would revert to his substantive post, then that's less good. Sounds like it might have been something in between.

Regardless of any correspondence personal to your DH Casserole and his situation, does the organisation not have any policy documents or guidelines about secondments or anything?

OK, thanks both, that's really helpful. He's on a course all day today but I will ask him those questions over the weekend and come back.

I REALLY appreciate you giving up your time to post.