On Monday evening, the Prime Minister announced that we are now in national lockdown with the clear message to Stay at Home. Clearly this increases the challenges we are all dealing with.
With regards to how we manage activity in our accommodation I do not think the Prime Minister’s Statement alters the approach set out in my previous email. These operational changes still stand in light of the new restrictions and will remain in place until further notice. We will, however, continue to review our approach to hygiene and personal protection and do please take all precautions already set out if you have to come into work accommodation.
School closures – key worker status
I know one of the biggest impacts of the national lockdown will be the impact of school closures on those colleagues who may now have to undertake external caring responsibilities. While nursery schooling will still be provided and secondary age children will be more capable of working independently, I appreciate that those with children in Reception to Year 6 will have a challenging balancing act to manage.
For all parents/carers with vulnerable children* (see definition) your child will still be entitled to go to school.
For other parents/carers, in some cases you may be eligible for key worker status – either due to contract delivery or because you are in a vital supporting role. If you believe you fit key worker status or would like advice on this, please contact you line manager who will be able to discuss this with you and your HR business partner, to determine whether this is the case. We are in discussion with a number of our commissioners to clarify this for services/contracts and where key worker status is established, we will provide confirmation of this to you to share with the relevant school.
Where key worker status does not apply, we will again look to:
- Continue to maximise the use of agile working where possible and practicable to do so.
- Encourage local collaboration and capacity planning to enable individuals and teams to support each other with resourcing difficulties.
- Enable staff to take annual or unpaid leave.
Health and wellbeing
Whilst I believe we have done a lot over recent months to support colleague health and wellbeing, I also recognise that things might feel harder and more challenging this time around. I would like to ask you to share any thoughts and ideas you might have for anything additional we can do to support you at this time. Please email coronavirus@growthco.uk with any ideas.