During periods of adverse weather, Falkirk Council aims to continue to deliver services and keep offices open, where possible, to safely maintain and support the community and vulnerable individuals.
Employees have a responsibility to report for work. In the event of adverse weather, all employees are expected to make every effort to report for work. This includes attempting to travel by alternative means than those used in normal weather conditions or making use of the Council's Hybrid Working Policy, working where relevant to their role.
Adverse weather can impact on working conditions, especially where employees are required to travel at work. In such circumstances, appropriate measures require to be implemented to manage any increased risk to employees.
It is also recognised that there may be occasions where employees are prevented from attending their workplace or prevented from returning home because of the weather conditions.
This policy is intended to assist managers in implementing a sensible and caring approach to individual employee circumstances whilst balancing this against the need to maintain the provision of services.
This Policy applies to all Falkirk Council employees.
Adverse weather: Definition
Adverse weather is defined as weather conditions that:
- have unusual consequences which affect working conditions
- prevent staff getting to work, or
- cause significant problems for staff getting to and from work
This can include snow, ice, fog, floods or high winds which render travel extremely hazardous. 'Extremely hazardous' is defined as conditions in which the Police and/or appropriate motoring organisations advise the public not to make unnecessary journeys or not to travel at all unless necessary. See weather alerts.
Communication
The Organisational Severe Weather Plan states: "Advance warning of such conditions is issued to Falkirk Council as part of the routine work of agencies such as the MET Office and Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA)". These alerts are circulated to specific individuals within Falkirk Council and Falkirk Health & Social Care Partnership. Alerts are then cascaded across the Council, including Microsoft Teams, Viva Engage, Twitter, for general information. This must be maintained for the period of the weather warning. This information is also published on broadcast news and weather services.
Each Service must have a system in place to cascade relevant weather alerts across the Service. This must include early dissemination of the information to those managing and planning home/site visits or travel in such weather conditions.
To ensure that they can respond to changes in adverse weather, Service Managers must ensure that they regularly check their emails/MS Teams for updates to ensure the flow of communication to their employees. Managers must ensure that they have access to the appropriate IT equipment and team contact information to allow them to communicate with employees if required to work from home or an alternative workplace due to adverse weather.
Weather alerts
The Met Office matrix is a key tool for providing a visual indicator for severity of weather impact. To understand how likely the Met office think the forecast impacts are, always check the matrix to see which box has been ticked and read the supporting forecast information.
Yellow and Amber warnings
Yellow and Amber warnings represent a range of impact levels and likelihoods, as set out in the Met Office matrix. These impacts can include damage to property, travel delays and cancellations, loss of water supplies, power cuts and, in the most severe cases, bring a danger to life.
Red warning
Dangerous weather is expected. It is very likely that there will be a risk to life, with substantial disruption to travel, energy supplies and possibly widespread damage to property and infrastructure.
Resilience Planning will activate the severe weather response plan in the event of departments (either individually or collectively) escalating their considerations above Trigger Level 1 as noted in the Organisational Severe Weather Plan, but only after discussion and oversight with the Head of Housing and Communities. This will be processed as per the Incident Management Plan.
Details are available in the How to manage adverse weather guidance.
Special leave
Where a red weather warning is in place, the Chief Executive (or the Chief Executive's substitute in their absence) will authorise full closure of Council buildings and apply special leave provisions during the red weather warning period for employees unable to work from home. Employees will be notified if this is the case. If this has not been communicated, it must be assumed that no special leave will be granted.
Where other weather warnings are in place, the Chief Executive may corporately approve that a manager may grant special leave to any employee who has made a genuine effort to get to work but has been unable to do so due to weather conditions. In such circumstances, where weather conditions persist, this decision will be reviewed daily. Where considered appropriate, the Council may revert to requiring individuals to take annual leave, flexi leave or unpaid leave. This ensures fairness to employees who have made additional efforts to attend work in difficult conditions.
Failure to notify the relevant manager or supervisor of non- attendance within a reasonable period will prejudice an employee's right to request that "special" leave be granted.
Even where special leave applies, all employees are still expected to make efforts to attend work, this may include working from alternative locations or from home where this is appropriate to the role.
During periods of adverse weather conditions, and only where special leave has been corporately approved, it may be appropriate for normal starting and finishing times for employees to be waived. In such circumstances, line managers would approve the appropriate method of crediting employees who, because of the weather conditions, have been unable to complete their normal work period. For example, crediting their flexi for the time taken additional to their normal day's journey to complete their journey to work (subject to the limit of their normal working day, ie 7 or 7.4 hours). Where the Chief Executive authorises the early closure of Council buildings, employees should be credited for a normal finishing time, eg credited until 5pm or normal finish time.
Employees required to stay at work
Where an employee is required by their line manager to remain at work during the occurrence of adverse weather and is, consequently, unable to return home, appropriate arrangements will be made, where necessary, for overnight accommodation. This must be approved by the relevant Chief Officer. As an alternative, arrangements may be made to take the individual home. All appropriate expenses incurred by the individual employee in such circumstances will be reimbursed at a later stage in line with the Council's conditions of service relating to subsistence.
This policy is effective from November 2018.