At Tuesday’s Executive meeting, members discussed a motion put forward by Cllr Ian Ward calling for military reservists to be allowed ten days training per annum without the need to use their annual leave.
Rather confusingly, given the amount of time available to prepare the paper for this item (it was first tabled for the July full council meeting), there were no figures available of how many reservists the council actually employs.
We asked the question
On Wednesday morning, OnTheWight posed the question to the council.
Claire Shand, head of HR and organisational change, replied today,
“The council does have digitised records for the storage of personnel information, however there is no obligation for individual members of staff to declare whether they are a reservist or may require any other form of special leave as a result of their status.
“Currently information about reservists within the council – those who have chosen to declare their role – is held with individual service managers, although we are in the process of capturing the information centrally.
Claire went on to say,
“Due to some managers being on annual leave in August, it is anticipated this work will be completed in September.”
What happens if all reservists are called up?
Many might find it astonishing the council does not make it obligatory for reservists to declare their status.
Not knowing how many of their staff are reservists begs the question, should a local or national disaster occur and all Isle of Wight reservists be called up, what kind of state would the Isle of Wight council be left in?
Given the strong service connections of Islanders, it’s highly possible that the number of reservists working at the council is more than one or two people.
What was proposed
At the moment, reservists receive five days paid leave for training, but Cllr Ward argues the mandatory amount is ten days.
He proposed,
I propose that this Council supports an important condition of the Community Covenant that service personnel should not be dis-advantaged because of their military service.
In particular, the Isle of Wight Council should grant its employees, who are service reservists, to undertake their two weeks training (10 working days) without the need to take any of those days as annual leave.
Cllr Ward’s motion was deferred, as reported by Jess Parker from the BBC, so the council can better research the impact.
Image: © Isle of Wight Council
