Since the last update provided, work has continued to progress on a number of key areas of activity of the Job Evaluation Project. including most recently Area 7 – Appeals.  

As part of this area of work, a Draft Appeal Process has since been developed, which includes transparency on the evaluation of roles however, further to discussion with the current scheme provider, it has become apparent that the level of transparency is not adequate when staff receive the outcomes of their evaluations to allow them to properly prepare an appeal submission

On 30 January 2026, the Professional Services Trade Unions – UNISON, Unite and the GMB – advised CES that if there is no agreed satisfactory transparent appeal procedure which provides their members with the clarity on how they have been evaluated on factor levels to enable understanding and confirm the validity (or otherwise) of their evaluated score, then they cannot agree to the continued use of the current Job Evaluation scheme, or the use of any other scheme provider that failed to provide this information.
 
As such, at the most recent Job Evaluation Project Board meeting on 10 March 2026 it was agreed that the Joint Secretaries would undertake a piece of work to explore alternative scheme providers for Job Evaluation to understand if any scheme providers (including that of the current provider ECC-FEDRA) are able to provide the level of satisfactory transparency required to move forward.
 
The Joint Secretaries have since commenced this process and are currently sifting through those potential schemes that may be suitable, thereafter, they intend to meet with the selected providers and put to them a series of principles that are a jointly agreed pre-requisite to meet the desired level of transparency required to progress. 
 
On completion of this exercise the Joint Secretaries will then return their Findings and Conclusions for review to the Job Evaluation Project Board.