UNISON Political Fund Consultation Meeting

16 January 2017 10:30am–1:00pm

Central Baptist Church, Victoria Road South, Chelmsford CM1 1LN

We are inviting members of the Eastern Regional Council to attend a political fund consultation meeting on Monday 16 January 2017 at the Central Baptist Church in Chelmsford from 10.30am until 1pm. As you know, the Trade Union Act will require all new members to ‘opt-in’ to the political fund. The government laid the statutory instrument recently setting out the transition period for these measures. This requires UNISON and other unions with political funds to have opt-in arrangements in place by end of February 2018.

This means getting rule changes to National Delegate Conference in 2017 and the need to submit our proposed changes to the NEC in February.

A joint Labour Link / General Political Fund/Finance and Resource Management working group is developing proposals.

As a region, we need to feed into this Consultation by providing our agreed responses to this consultation to the working group.  This will help them draw conclusions around the principles and approaches that should underpin the changes that need to be made.

There is a tight deadline for these responses hence the short notice for this meeting.

If you are able to attend this meeting, please email Suzanne Keddie on s.keddie@unison.co.uk by Tuesday 10th January 2017 at the latest so that we organise catering and appropriate facilities.  Refreshments and a sandwich lunch will be provided.

If you would like to submit consultation responses from your branch via email, please also email these to Suzanne Keddie at the address above by 10th January so that your responses can be considered along with others at the meeting.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Regards

Darren Barber                   Glyn Hawker

Regional Convenor          Regional Secretary