18th January 1999

Gerry Morrissey
Assistant General Secretary
BECTU
111 Wardour Street
London W1V 4AY

Dear Gerry

Working Time Compensatory Rest / Resources 10s & 12s

Further to our letter of 11th January 1999, I am writing to confirm that if the unions agree to a 52 week reference period and accept our intention to use the full flexibility of the broadcast derogation without challange, then we would be willing to enter into discussions on implementing a Resources-wide approach to compensatory rest.

The discussions would be on the basis of replacing all existing aggrements for 10 hour break infringements with new agreements relating to 11 hour break infringements. These new agreements would provide for compensatory leave rather than payment. We would also discuss extending these agreements across all operational areas of Resources, specifically into the North, PPGD and News Resources which currently do not have '10s' agreements. This would mean that that within Resources, compensatory rest for infringement of Working Time daily rest periods would be treated as compensatory leave.

Under the terms of the Working Time Regulations compensatory rest cannot be bought out. As you are aware, Resources would expect to schedule back any compensatory leave earned under the above conditions usually within 2 accounting periods from the infringement. We would need to discuss further how compensatory leave should be managed if, in exceptional circumstances, it cannot be scheduled back within this timeframe.

As agreed at our meeting of 11th January, our discussions would only relate to 11 hour break infringements; there would be no discussion of either modifying existing arrangements for 12 hour shift infringements or implementing these arrangements in areas which currently do not have them.

In relation to infringements of the Weekly Rest period, we are pleased that you accept that where an individual has received an additional payment for working on the day(s) that infringed the Working Time regulations, then compensatory rest need not be paid time nor at a time when an individual would otherwise have been working. However, we would wish to manage infringements of the weekly rest period on the basis of 'as many days off as there are weeks in the accounting period', as outlined in BBC Production's Scheduling Guidelines. As you would wish this to be monitored on the basis of each 14 day period, compensatory rest for weekly rest infringements would have to form part of any future discussions that we hold.

We acknowledge that there would be many points of detail to discuss. However, if you are willing to proceed on this basis, then we undertake to hold further discussions with you in good faith, with a view to implementing a Resources-wide approach to compensatory rest within the suggested timeframe of 3 months.

Yours sincerely

Rob Murdoch
Human Resources Director, Resources

[Please note a number of typographical errors in paragraphs 1 and 2 of the above letter have been corrected since the original posting of this page on 22 January 1999]

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