Dear Members,
Today’s announcement that the NCA in line with other Civil Service departments should cap hybrid working (no more than 40% working from home), heaps more misery on an already dispirited NCA workforce.
As we travel the country to discuss the delayed 2023/24 pay award with NCOA members, the consistent message we are receiving is that many members have lost confidence in the NCA’s Senior Leadership to deliver ‘what is best for the Agency’. Instead, they are pandering to faceless Whitehall mandarins, who having already severely watered down the NCA pay case and discouraged the Agency from paying its officers the £1500 pay award; they now seek to unpick many months of engagement and analysis which delivered a 40% attendance hybrid working model.
It is this fully road-tested 40% model which underpins not only the Agency’s Estate Strategy including its move of HQ to Stratford but also its aim of improving the diversity of its workforce.
When rumours of this arbitrary decision to change hybrid working arrangements were first mooted last week, the NCOA were very clear with the Agency, that they should publicly reject it, as the case for the 40% model had been well made and has already proven to be a success.
Whilst the Agency considers its response, it is now increasingly important that NCOA members continue to stand firm and withdraw their goodwill. We already know that it is this action which has focused the attention of the NCA leaders to at last start to resolve the delayed pay award.
It will now also send a clear message to those leaders and their superiors in HM Government, that NCOA members will no longer tolerate being pawns in the political gambits being played out in preparation for next year’s General Election.
Regards,
Steve BOND
National Officer, NCOA