Newcastle UNISON are successfully working to promote learning opportunities to staff across the north-east authority. 

UNISON’s Newcastle City Branch and the city council have opened three new Learning Zones in different parts of the city. These are IT equipped spaces where UNISON learning reps are on hand to provide support and guidance to learners.

The Learning Zones enable council staff to get to grips with computers and the internet for the first time.

Branch Education Officer Wendy Aitman explains:

There are set opening times and people know they can book on to make sure there is space and they can have enough time as is needed within the opening hours to really cover what they want.

For the most part, the learners haven’t been on a computer before and might not even have used a mouse before, so we get them started so they can access things like our weekly update for members and councils update for staff, and a lot of them have been fascinated to see their payslips online."

The Learning Zone in the Welford Centre (which provides services to adults with learning disabilities) was the first to open last summer, and is mainly used by care workers.

The Learning Zone in the council offices in Newington Road covers frontline staff, predominantly from highways services, including a number of apprentices.

The third Learning Zone is scheduled to open in Condercum Road, aimed at locailised and facility services staff.

The branch holds ULR forums twice a year to help plan upcoming activities and Human Resources Assistant Director Pam Perry has spoken at the two most recent editions in further evidence of the strength of the learning partnership.

Pam said:

The forum is a chance for me to thank the ULRs for their contribution to the partnership approach to learning and development. Partnership is hugely important.

We take a joint approach to identify elemnets that benefit both the trade union and the organisation. UNISON can do things we wouldn’t be able to do in-house and access funding to do them, while we can support them by granting release time for staff to attend the events.

For example, UNISON were keen to offer Mental Health First Aid sessions, so they came to talk to us about how we could do that in partnerships. As a result, we facilitated the event and we paid for some of the elements and the union paid for some of the elements."

Wendy feels this partnership approach is working and added:

Pam Perry’s input into the ULR forums is always of real value to the learning reps, and I get really positive feedback from them about her contributions.

Pam is keen that the ULRs know the importance of the work they do. When we attend the Council Joint Committee, I talk about the work that the ULRs have been involved in, and this is a meeting that both the leader of the council and the Chief Executive attend."

This story first appeared in U Learn – Summer 2017.