FOI 25-131 NHS Scotland Contracted Overtime policy
Freedom of Information Request
- Reference
- FOI 25-131 NHS Scotland Contracted Overtime policy
- Request Date
- 17 Mar 2025
- Response Date
- 25 Mar 2025
- Information Requested
Under the Freedom of Information Act can you provide a yes or no answer to the following question with reasons why for during the Covid Pandemic and before the Covid Pandemic.
I have attached the nhs scotland policy which states-
"A commitment by an individual to work where an employee has a formal agreement contained within their contract of employment to overtime as part of their normal working pattern and/or a commitment by an employee to work whereby the individual employee enters into agreement to undertake overtime at a given time or frequency from which point they can only leave on arrangement by giving formal notice in writing of a minimum of 4 weeks."
Does this apply to a part time member of staff who agrees to work full-time on a set day, time and frequency for an extended period of time when they have the agreement in a digital message sent from a Scottish Ambulance Service device?
- Response
No, the circular quoted does NOT apply to a part-time member of staff who agrees to work full-time where an agreement is contained within a digital message. There were no special arrangements within the Scottish Ambulance Service before or during the covid pandemic.
The reasonings are:
- A signed notification of change form is the only acceptable form of ‘formal agreement contained within their contract of employment’. Notification of change forms can be electronically signed, however, agreements made verbally or via email, WhatsApp messages etc are not considered to be formal changes within a contract.
- Part-time staff can only be paid overtime rates over and above full-time hours. Therefore, any hours that a part-time member of staff work up until 37.5hours would be considered as ‘additional hours’ and NOT overtime hours.
- ‘Additional hours’ would not be part of a formal contract agreement, once a notification of change form is signed the newly agreed hours would then become the part-time staff members’ new contracted hours. Where a member of staff on part-time hours signs a notification of change form to make their hours up to full time hours, they would then become a full-time member of staff and NOT be a part-time staff member with contracted addition or overtime hours.
- The Scottish Ambulance Service does not offer overtime hours as part of a contract of employment. Any overtime offered to staff is on a voluntary basis.
