Our governance
Certification Office Business Plan
Overview
The Certification Officer’s first term of office came to an end in December 2022, and her current contract has been extended for a period of six months. The Department for Business and Trade, our new sponsor department, continues to lead on the process for either reappointing or replacing her.
Over the last five years she has overseen the implementation of the Trade Union Act 2016, the most significant change to trade union regulation in a generation. Implementation of the 2016 Act has changed the nature of the Certification Officer, adding proactive regulatory powers and altering her funding model, from direct funding by government to levy funding by the organisations she regulates.
Her office has also delivered a series of service improvement projects, reducing cost and delivering better, faster outcomes to complaints made to her, and ensuring that everyone in the UK can access her services, transforming the office that supports her into a modern, open and effective regulator.
Openness and transparency are central to the Certification Officer’s vision and we will redouble our efforts to ensure that organisations she regulates can scrutinise our activities, objectives and finances.
This Business Plan is a key part of delivering that objective and we have shared a draft with unions and employers’ associations prior to publication. The Certification Officer’s Annual Report will include additional information of interest to the organisations, their members and the public, reporting on progress made in delivering objectives for 2022/23 and including details of the levy and office finances.
Central to our planning is the recognition that most of the work of the office is funded through the subscriptions of union members, and the businesses who are members of employers’ associations; our focus must therefore be on maximising efficiency, value for money and public benefit, ensuring that the office is appropriately resourced, delivering the best outcome to people using its services.
There is significant public benefit associated with the office, ensuring that unions and employers’ associations are transparent, well governed and act lawfully, and that their members can raise concerns about the administration and governance of organisations with an independent adjudicator.
While the number of complaints made about trade unions continues to decrease, and the number of employers’ associations on the Certification Officer’s list has reduced significantly, there continues to be strong demand from new organisations to be added to the list of trade unions and the office remains busy and we expect it to continue to have a steady operational workload throughout 2023/24.
Objectives for 2023/24
The theme for this year is refocusing on the fundamentals, reviewing the work of the office and the services we deliver, building on our ongoing commitment to continuously improve our systems, policies and processes, and consolidating significant improvements made over the last five years.
We will:
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Conduct a review of the operation of the office, evaluating our effectiveness and efficiency and ensuring that clear policies and procedures are in place to govern the way we work. Our intention is to ensure that we are providing an excellent service to trade unions, employers’ associations, their members and members of the public, to ensure consistency across service provision, and identify new opportunities for continuous improvement.
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As part of this review we will also conduct a workforce review to ensure that we have the right number of staff and the right skills required to deliver our work effectively. We recognise that staffing requirements in the office will vary over time, that it has been two years since the last workforce review was completed and that we’ve made significant changes to our practices since then, with a greater emphasis on digital delivery and flexible working.
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And we will take steps to ensure that the Certification Office continues to be a great place to work, seeking gold Investors in People accreditation. We achieved silver accreditation in the autumn of 2020 and found the process to be both an excellent way of understanding the experience of colleagues working in the office, and a spur to address issues of importance to them, improving our performance and effectiveness.
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We will continue to look for ways to work proactively with organisations when resolving complaints and receiving and publishing annual returns so that any issues can be resolved as quickly as possible. We recognise the benefits derived from working cooperatively with the organisations we regulate, helping to improve both levels of voluntary compliance with statutory requirements, and the operation of the regulatory functions we rely on to check and enforce compliance.
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We will complete work to replace our statistical database with a modern and effective system, and upgrade our website, so that our services are immediately available to all. The database is an old system which is increasingly complex and costly to maintain; replacing will enable future service improvement. Our website is our principal means of providing services to unions, employers’ organisations, their members and members of the public.
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Finally, we will produce a high-level strategy setting out the priorities of the office over the next four to five years, establishing our organisational goals and means of delivering them. Having an ambitious long-term plan recognises that many of the future improvements to the work of the office are likely to be complex, predicated on significant consultation and cooperation with organisations, and need to be delivered consistently across financial years.
Cost of the Office
Our expectation is that the cost of the office will reduce slightly in 2023/24 due to planned reductions in staff costs. This means that we are likely to spend less than our starting budget of £623k, but the costs of the office are variable, particularly in relation to handling complaints, which can be difficult to predict.
This means that, all other things being equal, trade unions and employers’ associations can expect to make roughly the same levy contribution as in 2022/23. As in the first levy period, we will provide an updated forecast at mid-year, likely to be in November 2023, before the levy notices are issued in April 2024 and payment falls due at the end of May that year.
It is possible that we will need to find additional sums to cover the costs associated with replacing our statistical database and continuing to upgrade our website, but we will look to alternative sources of funding to do this, principally opportunities to tap into funds directed at promoting innovation in the delivery of public services, rather than passing the costs on to organisations through the levy.
Get in Touch
We are keen to engage with all our stakeholders and any other interested parties on an ongoing basis. If you have any questions about this business plan or would like to discuss any other aspect of the operation of the office, then please get in touch: info@certoffice.org.
We would also be grateful to receive suggestions about how the office might improve delivery of services to unions, employers’ associations, their members and members of the public, including ideas for our future work priorities.