Dear Colleague
REVIEW OF REGIONAL AND GROUP STRUCTURE –RECOMMENDATIONS AND MOTION FROM THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
1. Group Circular GC 936, issued in late February, invited comments from Groups and Branches on the recommendations from the Working Party which had been tasked by the Executive Council with reviewing the Regional and Group structure, in response to Remitted Motion A17/22 from the 2022 AGM (reproduced below). The Working Party met on three occassions on 10 January; 30 January; and 24 May. An article was published in the Spring issue of The Pensioner magazine inviting views from individual members and representatives.
2. Remitted Motion A17/23: “The recent Government lock-downs and restrictions have highlighted the shortcomings of Alliance Groups in maintaining meaningful contact with their members. Together with groups closing and others struggling to remain in existence due to a lack of volunteers to take up committee positions, and notwithstanding the 2019 Working Party report and recommendations on the organisation of CSPA, it is time now for the Executive Committee to consider the disbandment of the group structure in England and Wales and move to Regional Representation with each EC Regional Member holding the chair position with other committee posts being filled from volunteers from within that region.
Rather than watch the slow rupture of the Alliance take place over the next few years, the Executive Committee is instructed to devise a plan to move to a regional structure and to put in place for consideration and implementation at a future date to be agreed by the AGM in 2023”.
Moved by Winchester Group
3. During the debate on Motion A/17 at the 2022 AGM, Mike Lawler, Secretary (Organisation), spoke on behalf of the EC. He confirmed that the EC had agreed in principle to set up a working party comprising some Regional Representatives, and representatives from local Groups.to review the current
structure. Group representatives would be included because the EC wished to preserve active Groups. It was apparent that the present Group structure is not working satisfactorily for all members, as evidenced by the recent analysis of closed Groups and the current rate
at which local Groups are closing, with the number of members not covered by local Group increasing to more than a third of all members in England and upto 60% in some Regions.
4. The report of the Working Party`s consideration of was considered by the EC in late April, and the draft recommmendations referred back to the Working Party to formulate revised proposals for EC approval. This Group Circular sets out the final recommendations from the Executive Council which are being submitted from the EC for debate at the 2023 AGM on 11-12 October.
5. The initial recommendations from the Working Party, as set out in GC 936, were as follows:
Initial Working Party Recommendations (as set out in GC 936):
“1. No change is not an option -There is a clear consensus on the Working Party that that continuing with the status quo is simply managing decline, whilst local Groups are closing at an alarming rate,
and is not a feasible option. Around 60% of members are not allocated to a Group due to closures. There needs to be change, but consensual change that has the support and active engagement of local Groups and active members.
2. Moving to a Regional structure would be controverial with many Group and members, and would not get the necessary support of the AGM to proceed, and more immediately would be likely to facilitate early closure of many more local Groups which are active.
3. There is support for a `hybrid` approach of using the capacity of active Groups and the EC Regional Rep to be brought to bear in helping develop active networks of volunteers across each Region to plan and implement local initiatives to revive Groups or find other ways to engage with members across the Region.
4. This has to be a process of agreed changes locally and not an across the board structural change imposed.
5. The aim of such a process is to encourage local networks of active reps to work with the Regional Rep to find and implement local initiatives to revive Groups and involve more members taking account of local circumstances and geography.
6. An active local network at Regional level can strengthen CSPA`s campaigning capacity in support and defence of Civil Service pensions and enhance CSPA`s visibility and presence locally and help attract new members
7. New approaches to engage members should be trialed on a pilot basis, such as planning a local CSPA team visit to a town without a local Group
and invite members in the area to attend; and trialing Zoom video Webinars to communicate with members
8. Trialing the concept of `virtual` Groups in a Region as a means to maintain contact with members no longer allocated to a local Group, utilising email and video communications as appropriate
9. Merging closed Groups with open active Groups needs to be a simpler administrative procedure with guidelines and Regional support and not just left to the local Group officers to facilitate.
10. Make more use of the new CSPA website and `The Pensioner` to promote local meetings and activities in each Region for members to access easily.
11. All of the above recommendations need to be considered holistically not as separate issues, and taken forward alongside implemntation of the recommendations from Working Party 1 of the New CSPA programme of work to improve the recruitment of new members as part of the recently agreed CSPA Recruitment Strategy.”
Responses Received from Groups and members
6. Written reponses were received from a total of 17 local Groups, and from 4 individual members or representatives.
The 17 local Groups who responded were:
- Bath and District
- Bristol
- Bedford and District
- Bournemouth and District
- Chester
- Crawley and District
- East Devon
- Gloucestershire
- Hillingdon
- Inner London
- Leicetershire and Rutland
- North Wales
- Southend and District
- Suffolk
- West Mercia
- Winchester and District
- Worthing and District
Individual comments were also received from some WP members and local Group representatives.
7. Many of the responses from Groups were in broad agreement with the main recommendations of the Working Party, together with comments on the problems facing local Groups and the challenges of getting more members to engage with their local Groups. However Winchester and District Group, and West Mercia Group both expressed disappointed with the recommendations and felt an opportunity had been lost to improve the structure to address the decline in member participation and sustain the future viability of CSPA. West Mercia also highlighted the previous recommendations of the “Way Forward” report of July 2019 (reproduced for information at Annex 3).
9. The Working Party were tasked by the EC to consider all of the comments received to the initial 11 recommendations on which Groups had been consulted in GC 936 (as reproduced above), and agreed that the final proposals for consideration at the AGM needed to be concise, comprehensive, and clear, and relevant to the purpose of the Review arising from Remitted Motion A17/23. The Working Party met again on 24 May to consider the reponses from Groups, and the views of the Executive Council for more concise and clear recommendations, which then led to final recommendations from the EC
10. The following three final recommendations form the basis of the motion that the Executive Council will submit to the AGM by the published deadline of Friday 7 July:
Final Recommendations and proposed motion from the Executive Council:
“This AGM notes the Report of the Review of Group and Regional structure as set out in Group Circular GC 939, and endorses the following Executive Council recommendations arising from the Working Party Review:
1. Local Groups, and the volunteers who support them, are the lifeblood of CSPA and must remain central to the effective representation at local level, where members wish that to be the case. Without a viable local Group structure, it will become more difficult to attract new members and retain existing members. Currently up to 60% of members are not allocated to an open Group, which challenges the democratic basis of CSPA and the representative nature of the AGM. This democratic deficit must be addressed, with all options being explored by the Executive Committee as a matter of urgency, alongside the priority of recruiting new members to support the work of local Groups.
2. The role and purpose of the EC Regional Representative should be strengthened, without any immediate need for constitutional changes, building on the existing capacity and commitment of active local Group representatives, to establish a Regional Forum of local volunteers across the Region, chaired by the Regional Representative. The purpose would be to
- find new ways to engage with members across the Region; and
- provide a Regional focus for CSPA`s campaigning capacity;
- enhance CSPA`s visibility across the Region;
- agree local initiatives to support local Groups, where requested.
- Utilise the avilable technology of video meetings on Zoom or Teams platforms to trial virtual Group meetings where appropriate;
- Utilise the existing resources of The Pensioner magazine; CSPA website; and social media to advertise meetings and other Regional activities and contacts;
- consider the scope for opening new Groups where there is no longer coverage,
whilst recognising that different approaches will be needed in each Region taking account of local circumstances and geography.
These developments will need to be closely monitored by the Executive Council and the AGM, with any constitutional or budgetary changes being considered where a need is identified.
3. Simplify the governance framework within which local Groups operate to remove barriers to participation and encourage informality rather than be prescriptive on officer roles; and simplify the process of merging closed Groups with open Groups, with a clear transparent protocol that is permissive rather than restrictive so as to encourage local and Regional initiatives to improve the local structure of CSPA and encourage more members to get involved locally.”
The above motion in the name of the Executive Council has now been submitted to the Standing Orders Committee for consideration at the AGM on 11-12 October 2023.
If you have any questions or require any further information about the matters covered by this Group Circular, please don’t hesitate to contact me by email at david.luxton@cspa.co.uk