3 unions serve notice on NHSGGC after 12 months of job evaluation unrest

For HR and reward professionals, the NHSGGC dispute is a case study in what happens when job evaluation frameworks are treated as negotiable. The unions' complaint is procedural — that nationally agreed Agenda for Change processes were not followed — which raises governance questions that outlast any single banding decision. With three unions acting jointly and other staff groups already in dispute, the escalation offers a warning about the cost of process failure in pay systems.

Health visitor team leaders at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde are preparing to take industrial action after accusing the health board of failing to follow nationally agreed job evaluation processes, escalating a dispute that has now run for at least 12 months. On Friday 14 August 2026, three trade unions — RCN Scotland, Unison and Unite — submitted formal written notice of action short of strike to the board. Union officials described the step as a reluctant last resort, but warned that further escalation would follow unless management changes course.

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On Friday 14 August 2026, three trade unions — RCN Scotland, Unison and Unite — submitted formal written notice of action short of strike to the board.

The procedural nature of the grievance is the most important feature of this dispute. Under the NHS Agenda for Change framework, staff are matched to pay bands through a national job evaluation scheme that assesses roles against factors such as knowledge, responsibility, skills and effort. The unions are not simply arguing that health visitor team leaders were placed in the wrong band; they are arguing that NHSGGC failed to follow the nationally agreed process for making that determination. In industrial relations terms, that converts what could have been a routine regrading negotiation into a dispute about governance, good faith and contractual obligation. Once a workforce believes the evaluation machinery itself has been compromised, individual banding outcomes become almost impossible to settle in isolation, because trust in the entire process is broken.

The context reinforces how significant that erosion of trust has become. The notice follows 12 months of unrest across several groups of staff employed by the board. District nurses have threatened industrial action, including full strike action, in their own job evaluation dispute, and other sections of the workforce have recently been on strike over fair pay and banding. Health visitor team leaders are therefore not an isolated grievance but the latest front in a pattern of unresolved pay and grading disputes at one of Scotland's largest health boards. The presence of three unions acting jointly — the nursing-focused RCN alongside general unions Unison and Unite — signals unusual coordination and shared frustration, which raises the ceiling on how far the action could escalate.

For NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, the stakes are operational as well as reputational. Action short of strike can include measures such as working to rule, withdrawing from non-core or administrative duties, and refusing overtime or additional responsibilities. In children's services, where health visitors deliver early intervention, safeguarding and family support, even partial withdrawal of discretionary effort can create backlogs and shift pressure onto already stretched colleagues. The unions have been careful to emphasise their members' commitment to safe and effective care — a deliberate framing designed to protect public support while applying maximum pressure to management. But the board now faces the prospect of coordinated disruption across multiple professional groups if the underlying evaluation dispute is not addressed.