FAQs

Community Integrated Care is one of the UK’s largest health and social care charities, supporting over 2500 people and employing 5200 incredible colleagues across Scotland and England. Like Inspire, Community Integrated Care was founded in 1988 and this year celebrated its 35th birthday, as Inspire will do in October. In 2022, Community Integrated Care launched its plan for the coming years, Best Lives Possible, which outlines the charity’s belief that whatever your ambitions or aspirations, you should always be supported to live a life full of choice, opportunity and possibilities. Community Integrated Care have underpinned this strategy with huge investment in lots of key areas, including Partnerships & Communities, Learning & Development and Technology. You’ll get the opportunity to meet the team at Community Integrated Care in the coming weeks and find out lots more about life at the charity and the opportunities and benefits that you’ll experience from the charities joining together.

In recent years, Inspire’s Leadership Team have been considering what the charity’s next step should be – given that any ambitious plans for development must be balanced with decisions that are financially sensible. To protect the charity’s long-term sustainability, whilst still innovating and realising ambitions for the future, we’ve concluded that the best way to achieve the vision is to align with a large care provider, which would provide stability and resources in a challenging operating environment. Community Integrated Care’s size and scale, as well as their extensive experience in innovation and technology is the main driver behind the merger for us. They have significant resource in key areas such as IT, Community Partnerships, Marketing and Learning & Development that’ll not only complement the work that we do but help us do more for our colleagues and the people we support. The merger is equally aligned with Community Integrated Care’s strategic ambitions. The charity’s plans are focussed on high-quality, sustainable growth – which the merger with Inspire provides. Inspire have a strong reputation in the sector and have consistently achieved positive Care Inspectorate grades, which makes us an excellent fit for Community Integrated Care’s Scottish operations. Importantly, given the uncertainty facing social care in Scotland, the merger also gives both charities an increased share of voice and therefore more opportunities to influence at a high level.

The proposed merger with Community Integrated Care amounts to a transfer under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 – commonly known as ‘TUPE’. Our frontline staff and frontline managers will continue to support people in our services as they do now, just as part of Community Integrated Care. We don’t anticipate any changes to the support we provide, however, there might be some differences in our ways of working. We’ll of course discuss these with you as we progress. As with any piece of work of this nature, there’s lots for us to consider in terms of how we practically integrate two organisations of this size and scale. As such, there’s still work for us to do to establish the full picture for all other teams – although at this stage, if there are any roles affected, we anticipate this will be a small number. It’s really important for us to assure you how much we absolutely recognise and value all of the skills, knowledge and experience within our teams and bringing our staff along with us on this journey is essential to the success of the merger. Right now, we’re preparing for a thorough period of TUPE consultation so that we can gather all of the information we need and have really good conversations with our staff. As part of this consultation, we will be working to minimise and manage the impact of the transfer on our teams and of course, we’ll talk to you about this every step of the way. To help us get to those discussions quickly, the first thing we will need to do is appoint elected employee representatives who will be spokespeople on behalf of staff in Operations and Business Support functions. We’ll be writing to all staff within the coming days with full details on the process and timescales for electing reps. The sooner we can do this, the sooner we can begin consultation and ideally, we’d like to be training our reps on 22nd June with a view to have the first meetings taking place in the days that follow. You can still ask your questions between now and then, and we’ll ensure that these are shared with your employee reps.

The proposed merger with Community Integrated Care amounts to a transfer under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 – commonly known as ‘TUPE’. This means that all Inspire colleagues (except for relief staff - more information below) will automatically transfer to Community Integrated Care (subject to consultation) on the same terms and conditions and that your continuity of employment will be preserved. Your pay, current terms and conditions of employment, and length of service are all protected under TUPE (except for certain occupational pension schemes – we have a separate FAQ all about this – see question 12). Under TUPE, there are a few exceptional reasons why a change is allowed to happen, for Economic, Technical or Organisational (ETO) reasons, but these would be very few e.g. if a change of pay date is decided, that would fall under ETO reasons and be discussed with you well in advance. Your employment and terms in your current role are protected by the TUPE regulations. Whilst we really hope that you transfer, if at the end of consultation, you choose not to transfer to Community Integrated Care under TUPE regulations, this will effectively be considered as your resignation. TUPE does not apply to people working for Inspire as relief staff, however relief staff are very important and there will be separate discussions with them about their options. There is also a specific FAQ about relief staff further down this page – see question 13. As with any piece of work of this nature, there’s lots for us to consider in terms of how we practically integrate two organisations of this size and scale. As such, there’s still work for us to do to establish the full picture for some teams – although at this stage, if there are any roles affected, we anticipate this will be a small number. It’s really important for us to assure you how much we absolutely recognise and value all of the skills, knowledge and experience within our teams and bringing our staff along with us on this journey is essential to the success of the merger. Right now, we’re preparing for a thorough period of TUPE consultation so that we can gather all of the information we need and have really good conversations with our staff. As part of this consultation, we will be working to minimise and manage the impact of the transfer on our teams and of course, we’ll talk to you about this every step of the way. After the merger, you may be interested in one of the many opportunities available for other roles within Community Integrated Care, and you will be able to apply for any of those new roles on Community Integrated Care terms.

We’ll now enter a period of consultation, and it is the intention for this to be complete, and the official transfer to take place, in August 2023. You will of course be kept updated on anything that might impact this date.

No. After the transfer date, Community Integrated Care will become your employer. In practical terms this means that on the transfer date (or shortly after) you might get a P45 from Inspire – but don’t worry, this is just for HMRC purposes and unless you have objected to the transfer you’ll automatically move to Community Integrated Care’s payroll.

Consultation, at its core, just means really good quality, two-way conversations. Formal consultation is a process of conversations about the merger / TUPE process and how they impact you and your employment. These involve Inspire – as your employer – talking to you alongside your elected representatives about the proposals, outlining what these mean for you and what your options are, and giving you the opportunity to ask any questions you might have or share any concerns. Usually there’ll be several rounds of consultation meetings to allow you to digest the information you’ve received and to have any necessary conversations with your employee representatives. You’ll have the option for individual conversations too.

Before we can begin the consultation period, we need to appoint elected employee representatives, who will be spokespeople on behalf of staff in Operations and Business Support functions, sharing your feedback and questions and supporting you with any information and assurance you need We’ll send full details about the process for electing your employee representatives a few days after the announcement of our intention to merge. Anyone can put themselves forward to be an employee representative and we’re aiming to have all employee reps in place and trained by 22nd June, so that we can begin consulting with everyone as soon as possible.

The employee representatives are elected to support with the transfer by ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard, and all questions are asked and answered. It’s a really key role to help ensure that colleagues have all of the information they need. Whilst you’ll get time off rota to complete your duties during the transfer, your role will otherwise continue as normal and your duties as a representative will end after the merger is complete. However, if you enjoy the role of employee representative and think you have a lot to offer as a voice for the people you work with, you could consider GameChangers – Community Integrated Care’s Colleague Forum. Opportunities to be part of the Forum arise quite frequently, so keep an eye out for those after the merger is complete!

Under TUPE regulations, your terms and conditions of employment are protected and will therefore not change. The consultation process will help you understand this in more detail so please make sure you share any questions you have.

No – your terms and conditions are protected for the duration of your employment under TUPE regulations, unless something triggers a change in your contract such as a new role or a temporary change to bank / relief – in which case, your contract would change to a Community Integrated Care contract.

Community Integrated Care will offer an auto-enrolment pension similar to Inspire’s. Anyone currently in the auto-enrolment scheme will be enrolled into Community Integrated Care’s scheme. You will be given information as to how to move your pension from one scheme to the other if you wish. There are some different rules for Occupational Pension schemes under TUPE so there may be some changes to pensions which we will discuss with you through the consultation. We will be speaking to any colleagues on either a NESPF, NHS, or other Local Government pension individually to support the correct transfer of their pension arrangements.

Relief staff are incredibly important to the support provided by Inspire. We know that amongst this community, there’s a wealth of passionate and long-serving colleagues, and we very much hope you’ll be excited to be part of this journey too. The process of transition is slightly different for relief staff as TUPE regulations don’t apply to them. Rather than automatically transferring over to Community Integrated Care, relief staff will be invited to join the charity’s bank colleagues. All relief staff will receive a communication outlining what they need to do to join Community Integrated Care’s bank (their name for relief staff). If relief staff choose to join (which we really hope they do!) their role will continue as it does now to ensure that continuity for our teams – just with a Community Integrated Care bank agreement instead of Inspire. If you currently work for Inspire as a relief member of staff, you may also want to take this opportunity to decide whether you’d like to join Community Integrated Care on a more permanent basis and we’d love to explore that with you wherever we have live vacancies.

With all frontline staff continuing as normal in their roles as part of the merger, we anticipate the day-to-day impact on people supported to be minimal. There may be some changes to ways of working further down the line that impact people, for example, the system we use to record a person’s care plan and how we plan our rotas, however these won’t be detrimental to the support they receive. We’re confident that the impact of the merger on people supported will be positive. Community Integrated Care are well known for the opportunities they create for the people they support through their Partnerships & Communities Team. We’re hopeful that this, coupled with Inspire’s passion for events and value-added activities, will create some very special experiences and opportunities for the people we support. Finally, one of the main drivers behind the merger was for Inspire to be part of a larger organisation and access the innovative systems and technology that Community Integrated Care have – all of which will in turn make the lives of staff easier and allow you all to spend more time doing what you do best – supporting people to live great lives.

Whilst we don’t anticipate any changes to the support people receive, we know that communicating effectively with the people we support is really important. Our teams in services are best placed to manage this communication as they know the people we support best and understand their needs – so all managers have been provided with an easy-read guide to the merger to share with the people we support and guidance on how best to deliver this update. We’ve written to all families and guardians to tell them about the merger and to reassure them that there’ll be no detrimental impact on their family member. We’re also inviting all families to a webinar shortly to hear directly from Linda and share any questions they might have.

Inspire and Community Integrated Care have been in conversations for a few years now, however any formal discussions about future plans were, unfortunately, halted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Both charities stayed in close contact during that time and really got to know each other better. In fact, throughout the pandemic Community Integrated Care and Inspire were very supportive to each other in terms of guidance, policies, resources and ways of working. When the time was right in late 2022, we picked back up on the formal conversations around the merger, which has led us to where we are today.

In the short term, there’ll be no changes to the branding of Inspire. Inspire has some great projects that make us unique, such as our ‘Inspired By’ Day Services, and other special initiatives that we want to ensure are promoted in the right way. Over time, this will be considered again, however any changes to the branding will be done in a way that feels sensible and natural. Please note though, your employer will be Community Integrated Care on things like your payslip.

If you work in a service, we don't anticipate any immediate changes to your line management. In other teams, there may be a small number of roles affected by the transfer, which may result in some changes to structures. What’s important right now is that we run a thorough consultation process with everyone, and particularly anyone who is affected by the transfer, as that will give us a better picture of what the future will look like.

On a day-to-day basis, there won’t be any major immediate changes to how you support people – however as we work our way through the consultation, transfer and integration, we anticipate some changes to ways of working - although we’re confident that these won’t have any negative impact on the work that you do. We’ll be in regular communication with you all about these throughout the consultation and on-hand to discuss any questions or concerns you might have.

Whilst we don’t anticipate any changes to the support we provide, there may be some changes to elements of how we work, but we’ll be working to make sure that these changes are right for all of our staff and the people we support. It’s important to note that with or without the merger with Community Integrated Care, we saw ourselves on a journey of modernisation and innovation, so the likelihood is that we’d have been experiencing some change in any case – but all for the benefit of our people and the charity.

Both Inspire and Community Integrated Care are renowned for their approach to learning and by bringing these together, we’re going to create something special in the sector. Community Integrated Care have recently launched an industry-leading learning programme called GROW, and we’re really looking forward to you being able to take advantage of this fantastic platform. So, whilst it’s likely there’ll be more learning, it will be relevant to your role, engaging, and most importantly, it’ll reflect the vast breadth of skills and capabilities that are required to do your fantastic work. Just to reassure you though, we’ll be taking a pragmatic approach – for example, if you’ve recently completed some training, you won’t be expected to retake this – your existing training record will be considered.

We’re equally proud of our learning offer, especially our SVQ centre. We won’t be losing any of our offer – in fact we’ll be enhancing it. Community Integrated Care have considerably more experience in areas such as leadership development, future and workforce planning and so, whilst in time things may be delivered a little differently, we won’t be losing anything that you currently receive.

Absolutely – in the coming weeks there’ll be lots of opportunities to hear from Community Integrated Care’s Executive Team through their a series of Welcome webinars, and you'll be able meet their local leadership team, who'll be out and about visiting Inspire services. Together with Community Integrated Care we’ll be providing regular updates and resources on the www.welcomeinspire.co.uk microsite.

There are several projects, initiatives and opportunities at Community Integrated Care that make them stand out in our sector as a great place to work: GROW – Community Integrated Care recently launched a sector-leading frontline learning platform called GROW. GROW goes beyond the standard mandatory courses often found in the social care sector and provides interactive, engaging and bite-sized learning on the full range of skills, capabilities and talents required to work in the sector – including topics such as Person Led Support, Positive Behavioural Support and Supporting Personal Finances. Partnerships & Communities Opportunities – Community Integrated Care’s Partnerships & Communities Team is renowned for the experiences and opportunities it creates for the people they support and their colleagues – whether its volunteering at global sporting events, meeting inspirational figures or getting people active in their communities, there’s always something really special for staff and the people they support to get involved with. This of course all builds on the work that Inspire currently do with our added value activities across all areas. Systems e.g. Office 365, Nourish & Maxtime – one of the main drivers behind the merger is Community Integrated Care’s extensive experience in a variety of transformative systems and technologies including the Microsoft Office 365 suite, Nourish, which allows staff to record care on-the-go using a handheld mobile device, and Maxtime, a platform that makes clocking in and out of shifts really easy whilst ensuring staff are paid accurately for the hours they work. Learn to LEAD is Community Integrated Care’s annual development programme for Support Workers who feel ready to take the next step in their career into a leadership role. Over a 12-18 month period, Learn to LEAD enables current Support Workers to take part in a series of training sessions while gaining in-role experience – developing all the knowledge needed to take on the role of frontline manager when a vacancy becomes available. This will not affect people already undertaking Inspire's current management programme. Equity, Diversity & Inclusion – Community Integrated Care are proud to have their own EDI strategy, ‘A Place I Belong’ which outlines our charity’s commitments to creating a fair, inclusive and equal organisation for staff and the people they support – including the launch of Inclusion Networks and specialist Diversity & Inclusion learning for all staff.

After 15 years in the team and six years as CEO, Linda is committed to her legacy of being one of long-term sustainability for the charity. To support this, Linda’s intention is to remain as CEO for around six months after the merger has taken place to ensure a smooth transition for everyone involved. After this period, Linda will be stepping down to spend time with her family, before deciding what she’d like to do next. Linda will leave the Inspire teams in the exceptionally capable hands of Sara Murphy, Community Integrated Care’s Managing Director for Scotland.

Whilst our Board of Trustees will step down at the point of transfer, two of our long-serving Trustees, Gillian Thompson and Allan Dick, will be joining Community Integrated Care’s Scotland Committee and will be on-hand to support the successful transition of Inspire. Linda’s intention is to remain as CEO for around six months after the merger has taken place to ensure a smooth transition for everyone involved. After this period, Linda will be stepping down to spend time with her family, before deciding what she’d like to do next. Linda will leave the teams in the exceptionally capable hands of Sara Murphy, Community Integrated Care’s Managing Director for Scotland. Both Inspire and Community Integrated Care very much recognise the skills, expertise and knowledge within the wider Leadership Team and are looking to ensure as much stability as possible going forward. What’s most important is that we now discuss the future with people throughout the consultation process so that everyone has the opportunity for a really good quality conversation about what this means for them.

In the days following the announcement, we’ll be writing to you all to explain the process of becoming an employee representative throughout the consultation period. This will broadly consist of a nomination process and election to choose from nominated candidates. All colleagues are welcome to put themselves forward to be an employee rep. We’re aiming to have all reps in post and trained on the 22nd June, with first meetings taking place in the few days afterwards. Once in post, the role of our employee reps will be to listen to your concerns and questions, seek answers to these and keep you informed of the response to your queries. They will essentially be spokespeople for the wider workforce throughout the consultation process. In the meantime, while we appoint and train our reps, you can still submit your questions – either via your Line Manager, by emailing GetInTouch@inspiremail.org.uk or by using the contact form on this microsite.

Community Integrated Care’s size and scale, as well as their extensive experience in innovation and technology is the main driver behind the merger for us. They have significant resource in key areas such as IT, Community Partnerships, Marketing and Learning & Development that’ll not only complement the work that we do but help us do more for our colleagues and the people we support. As a smaller provider, it would be tricky for us to achieve a lot of this on our own, so merging with a like-minded organisation that shares our values was the best option for us. The merger is equally aligned with Community Integrated Care’s strategic ambitions. The charity’s plans are focused on high-quality, sustainable growth – which the merger with Inspire provides. Inspire have a strong reputation in the sector and have consistently achieved positive Care Inspectorate grades, which makes us an excellent fit for Community Integrated Care’s Scottish operations. Importantly, given the uncertainty facing social care in Scotland, the merger also gives both sides an increased share of voice and therefore more opportunities to influence at a high level.

Inspire and Community Integrated Care have different monthly pay dates and so right now, we need to spend some time properly looking into the practicalities of this and decide how best to manage it. We don’t want you to worry though, if there are any changes to pay dates proposed, we will discuss these with you in full during the consultation, and will talk to you about the practicalities of any change to make sure that no-one is negatively impacted, especially if there might be a difference in pay dates which might leave you in difficulty managing your finances. There will be plenty of support available. Community Integrated Care have a partnership with a great organisation called Salary Finance – part of their offer is that they can provide you with an ‘advance’ on your pay of a percentage of the hours you’ve worked which gives you more flexibility about how you can access your salary.

Under TUPE regulations, your current pay and terms and conditions are protected, so will not change. Under TUPE, there are a few exceptional reasons why a change is allowed to happen, for Economic, Technical or Organisational (ETO) reasons, but these would be very few e.g. if a change of pay date is decided, that would fall under ETO reasons and be discussed with you well in advance. Community Integrated Care will offer an auto enrolment pension similar to Inspire’s. Anyone in the auto enrolment scheme will be enrolled into Community Integrated Care’s scheme. You will be given information as to how to move your pension from one scheme to the other if you wish. There are some different rules for Occupational Pension schemes under TUPE so there may be some changes to pensions which we will discuss with you through the consultation. We will be speaking to any colleagues on either a NESPF, NHS, or other Local Government pension individually to support the correct transfer of their pension arrangements.

Now that we’ve announced the news, we’ll begin the more formal processes involved whilst also doing some further information-gathering so that we can fully establish the impact of the merger. The first stage of the process is for us to appoint employee representatives, whose role it is to share your feedback and questions and to support you with any information and assurance you need. All colleagues are welcome to apply to become employee representatives, and we’ll be outlining the process for this within a few days after the announcement of our intention to merge. We aim to have all our reps in place and trained by 22nd June at which time we can then enter a period of collective consultation, where you’ll all be in discussions about the merger and what this means for your employment. Consultation will last for several weeks, with regular communications, service visits and opportunities to find out more and provide your feedback. This is the most important part of the process for you all, and the quicker we get through the election process, the sooner we can move onto consultation. Following the completion of the TUPE consultation period, we’re aiming for the merger to formally take place in August 2023. There’ll then be a period of integration that’ll last around two years while we transfer systems, technology and learning without overwhelming our teams. Then all that’s left to do is to enjoy your employment at Community Integrated Care and continue your fantastic work with the people you support.

One of the main benefits to us merging with Community Integrated Care is the wealth of fantastic systems and technology that we’d have access to as a result – so there are going to be some changes to the platforms and ways of working that you’re used to. We’d really urge you to see this as a brilliant opportunity to spend less time on the tasks that take you away from what you love and use systems that make it easier to deliver great support. Our business support teams will also benefit from transitioning to using more integrated systems which will enhance and streamline their day-to-day roles. We know that it can be daunting to get used to new systems though, so we’ll be making sure that these are implemented in a timescale and order that makes sense for you and your teams. Community Integrated Care have extensive experience in rolling out large-scale IT changes so will complete this in phases and provide lots of support throughout. We’ll share more details of how this will practically work over the next few weeks.

In the short term, yes – for a period of around 3-6 months whilst we work through some of the implementation of systems and ways of working. In the longer term, all being well, we’ll transfer all of our data and file structures to Community Integrated Care’s systems and use these instead. We know that it can be daunting getting used to new systems, so we’re working to an Integration Plan that allows us to get to grips with Community Integrated Care’s systems and technology as soon as we can, but in a way that feels manageable for you all.

It’s still a bit too early for us to give a definitive answer on this as it’s part of the Operational Integration Plan that we’re continuing to work through. You’ll likely move over to new policies gradually and we will support you with any changes as part of the integration plan. For now though, you should work to your current policies until informed otherwise.

We know how busy you are already and will ensure that the integration is managed in a way that takes this into consideration. We’re working on a thorough Integration Plan to support us to manage the merger in the best possible way, being mindful of the existing pressures on teams and the wider needs of the charity. Our intention is to introduce systems and processes to teams in cohorts, in line with the existing pressures on teams and the needs of the business. We’re also bringing in extra resource on the ground to help support a smooth transition throughout these changes, so we’re confident that this will be a positive experience for you all. However, if you are concerned about any part of the integration, please speak to your Line Manager or employee reps.

We’re working to an Integration Plan, which is basically the approach we’ll take when bringing teams on board with new systems, learning, processes and equipment. We understand how overwhelming it might feel to get up to speed with lots of new ways of working, so we’ll be doing this in a way that makes sense for you, your colleagues and the people you support. We’ll bring areas on in cohorts, starting with teams in Moray, so that we can adjust our approach as we go if we find there are things we need to speed up or slow down. We anticipate this will be over a period of around 12 months, so that it feels manageable and positive for everyone involved.

As part of the legal process surrounding the merger, we’ve been in regular contact with commissioners who have been really positive about it. One commissioner described it as an “innovative” move for social care in North East Scotland, so we’re confident that they’re really pleased with what they’ve seen so far.

As ways of working have changed over the last few years after Covid-19, we’ve been considering best use of our offices separately from any conversations around the merger. No decision has been made yet on how we’ll make use of these in the future, but we’ll continue to review this as we have been doing previously.

If you work in an office and currently work flexibly, e.g. you work part of our week at home, then we don’t see this changing. Community Integrated Care also have flexible working practices in place, and in fact are further along this road than Inspire are, so you may find that there’s more options for you to work flexibly after you transfer. A number of Support Services colleagues at Community Integrated Care work their full-time hours over a 4-day week, which means they get a 3-day weekend. Feedback is that this provides colleagues with time away from work to rest and recharge and helps them to manage work-life balance. It is important that we consider service delivery and support when implementing any changes to working patterns and Community Integrated Care have a tried and tested change model to manage this transition. We will work with you as part of the integration to discuss this and plan this in, if it is something you want to explore.

We’re really proud of the work that has gone into our SVQ centre and see this as a brilliant opportunity to see that work go even further. Community Integrated Care see the accreditation as a real positive for Inspire, so it’s something they’d love to continue with and learn more about.

Again, Community Integrated Care see our Inspired By services as a point of difference and innovation at Inspire and are keen to learn more about the model we’ve established and see how this can be taken forward.

We don’t envisage any immediate changes to how Inspire communicate and we’ll certainly keep our Inspire Matters newsletter for a while. The two charities will then need to get to know each other more and understand how to best to make sure everyone has regular access to the information, resources and opportunities that you need.

Nothing will change in the short / medium term with red risk cards – they’re key to managing risk in our services and will continue as normal.

There’ll be no changes to our properties – we’ll be in discussions with landlords throughout the process to make any necessary changes to leases.

There are no planned changes to any of our residential Care Inspectorate registrations. For Supported Living, this is something that we'll work though and figure out as the two organisations come together over the coming months. So, if you’re a registered manager for a residential care service, there’ll be no change to this. If you’re a registered manager in a Supported Living service, this may depend on the integration plan and how registrations of the combined organisation are set up with the Care Inspectorate.

Yes - all of Inspire's services will merge with Community Integrated Care.

You’ll work as you do now – whether this is in one location or across multiple sites. As we work through the Integration Plan, the opportunity may arise to work in a service more convenient for you or to take on relief hours at an additional service – however you won’t be required to as a result of the merger.

Agency workers are a key resource to ensure we can deliver support. We will ensure that where agency is required, there is no disruption to service delivery. Existing agency contracts will be invited to join Community Integrated Care’s preferred supplier list. One of Community Integrated Care’s big drivers is to invest in new and innovative recruitment approaches to reduce reliance on agency staff, in order to reinvest the money spent in other areas of the charity. After the transfer, you’ll have the opportunity to hear lots more from Community Integrated Care’s senior leaders on their strategic ambitions and plans for the future.

Your contract will transfer to Community Integrated Care exactly as it is now – if you are in probation you will continue in probation until the end date, and in line with your current probation policy.

We understand that you’ll of course have further questions about what is happening and how this impacts you and the people you support. In the first instance, please speak to your Line Manager or employee representatives, who will collate your questions and ensure these are answered. If your question is directly for the Leadership Team at Inspire, please email GetInTouch@inspiremail.org.uk and one of the team will be in touch. Alternatively, you can share your questions here on the microsite (www.welcomeinspire.co.uk), using the ‘Get In Touch’ page.

Further information and queries around individual roles and structures will be discussed throughout the consultation process. Community Integrated Care is proud to have many initiatives and opportunities that support the progression and development of talent from within the charity. In 2022, the charity proudly launched Learn to LEAD, a 15-month learning programme for Support Workers who feel ready to take the next step as a frontline leader, which has already supported several fantastic Support Workers to become Service Leaders since its inception. Learn to LEAD is an annual programme, and accepts applications from around the organisation with lots of support available from local People teams and line managers. For colleagues who are already in leadership roles, our LEAD programme is a three-day immersive learning experience, aimed at helping managers develop the skills they need to lead great teams including communications and leadership styles, the importance of feedback and so much more! There’s a one-day equivalent of LEAD for managers in Support Services roles too. For colleagues in leadership and Support Services roles, Community Integrated Care has implemented an annual performance review cycle, during which colleagues have great conversations with their line manager on how they’ve been performing against their objectives, their career ambitions and what steps are required to help them become a reality. Community Integrated Care has opportunities for Support Workers to deepen their expertise and responsibility without entering a leadership role by becoming an Advanced Support Worker (dependant on the specific needs and requirements of the service). Finally, all colleagues have regular 1-1 development conversations with their line managers, called You Can! Meetings, during which they’re encouraged to discuss their future plans and development goals.

Unfortunately, visa sponsorship is not something Community Integrated Care are able to offer. Community Integrated Care have considered, at great length, applying for a sponsorship licence however with the administrative and financial obligations required it is not possible at the moment. This is something that they review regularly, and keep on file any prospective colleagues who have this requirement so that if it’s something they can move forward with in the future, they can be in touch.

We appreciate that many of you will be keen to know more about Community Integrated Care’s organisational and operational structure to better understand where your own role sits. For the time being, as we prepare for our consultation process, we’re focussing on collating your questions, answering everything that we can for the time being and taking away anything that requires further consideration or can only be discussed as part of the consultation and in conjunction with your employee reps. It’s important that when we share further information about Community Integrated Care’s structure, that we do so with the right context and discussion about specific team and roles and how they align. To share this without those conversations may cause unnecessary confusion or concern, so we’re keen that we share this information with you in the most useful way possible. Once your employee reps are in place, we will absolutely be talking to you about this in detail, and any impact to your role.

You may have previously seen the full title of Community Integrated Care abbreviated to ‘CIC’. Whilst these both refer to the same organisation, it’s really important that we use the charity’s full name when referring to them. Community Integrated Care showcases exactly what they do: they work in the community, delivering integrated service, by people who care. Using acronyms not only dilutes this powerful message, but it has the potential to create confusion by mistaking the charity for someone else – such as a Community Interest Company, which are often also known as a ‘CIC’. So lets start as we mean to go on and ensure we use the full name going forward – Community Integrated Care!

All properties owned and leased by Inspire will transfer as part of the merger – there’ll be no impact on the people we support as a result.

As this is a personal registration for you as an individual, this will stay with you when you transfer. However, you are required to update your SSSC profile to inform them of any changes to your employment – including who you work for. As this is an individual registration, we’re unable to do this for you. To change your information, visit the SSSC website and go to ‘MySSSC’ to log in and change your details. You have six months to do this from the date the change takes place.

As both charity's prepare for the merger, there are some key activities that need to begin to support the transition, so we are aware that Community Integrated Care have a small number of adverts live for temporary support in some teams. We will be speaking with you very soon to explain more about TUPE, and about what the transfer means for you and for your role during the consultation. In the meantime, we have been working closely with Community Integrated Care in our shared objective to minimise impact on colleagues and we are clear that these temporary posts are not permanent and will not impact the consultation.

Community Integrated Care operates with three levels of Service Leader – Service Leader 1, Service Leader 2 and Service Leader 3. There are lots of considerations to take into account but primarily these levels are based on the size of services and the number of hours delivered. The levels ensure the right leadership and development is in place to provide excellent support to both colleagues and the people we support. SL1 is a development role for new Service Leaders, with its own smaller cluster and remit, and reports to and is supported by a SL3. Our SL2 role is the development pathway for an experienced SL1 who is ready to progress, or whose cluster of services / hours has grown organically. The SL3 position is for our more experienced leaders who have grown their cluster and often they have a SL1 reporting to them – this role is the development pathway for anyone looking to progress to a Regional Manager role.

Frontline Managers at Community Integrated Care are salaried and paid on the 15th of each month for the whole of the previous month. Support Workers are paid hourly on the 15th of each month for the whole of the previous month. Support Services colleagues are paid on the 28th of the month for that month. As part of this change we would offer advances and bridging loans directly to colleagues and these solutions would be outside of Salary Finance. Whilst Salary Finance can offer low interest loans and salary advances, these are not the options we would look to when supporting colleagues through this change. We wouldn't ask any colleague to take out a loan, or put themselves in debt to support through a pay date change.

We understand that document storage and the process of making any changes can be a long and intensive process. We do have secure storage options and will work with you on the best storage options and the process for moving documents, if this is required.

We'll be doing an email migration of all of the old emails from Gmail into Outlook. This will take a few months due to the huge volume of emails - we'll therefore ask you to check both accounts in the interim. If it's easier, you are welcome to put a rule in your Gmail to divert any new ones to Outlook - we can assist with this on the IT Welcome Day. Gmail emails can be transferred and archived in Outlook. Please note that Community Integrated Care's email policy means that emails are retained up to seven years, so anything older than this will be deleted.

Yes - if there is a formal flexible working agreement in place then this will continue. We are advocates for flexible working so are keen to support all colleagues to work flexibly, provided the needs of the people we support are met. Whilst the 9 day fortnight isn't a formal option available in the charity, if this is your current working pattern this can continue. If you want to consider this as a new working pattern, we can consider this - we are really happy to talk about flexible working.

Community Integrated Care's Death in Service benefit is 2 x salary for colleagues who have worked with the charity for 12 months or more and is subject to the rules of the scheme. We are aware that colleagues will have 6 x death in service as part of their Inspire contract and this will continue for anyone with this contract. This scheme will close for new colleagues at the point of the merger.

We have worked hard over the years to invest in the frontline colleague pay rate. Each year we review our pay and benefits and to date, the decision has been to invest primarily in frontline pay rates over other benefits, based on the feedback from our colleagues. We continue to review pay and benefits and where it is possible, affordable and sustainable to do so we will invest in other benefits.

All expenses that are in line with our expenses policy will be paid - so this will depend on what the expense is.

By Operational Frontline leaders we mean Senior Support Managers, Support Managers, or Assistant Support Managers etc. - so anyone that leads a service. Support Services / Back Office roles are roles which support operations - roles in Finance, HR, and Quality for example.

Community Integrated Care follows both depending on where colleagues live. Scotland bank holidays apply for Scotland colleagues.

Service Leaders at Community Integrated Care set the rotas for their services. We are aware that you have a slightly different model, particularly for Relief and Agency workers, and we are looking forward to learning more about this.

Our Expenses App can be accessed on any smartphone with an internet connection - including people's own personal phones. If any colleague doesn't have access to a smartphone and needs to use a work device to access the Expenses App, they can report this to their Line Manager who will be able to support.

Absolutely. As we start to move through each cohort we will engage with colleagues at the very beginning, and we will go through the process collaboratively as a team.

It is envisaged that the 'On Call' process will change and will move from being provided by Operational Frontline into Community Integrated Care's Virtual Care Centre (VCC). The VCC is a 24-hour staffed service with escalations throughout the regions. No exact date has been determined for this change and it will be fully discussed at the time. Community Integrated Care's own 'On Call' is in the process of transitioning from regional to VCC and this will continue after the merger.

Relief colleagues will transfer in the spirit of TUPE and therefore we will honour all terms and conditions, including current rate of pay. This doesn't prevent future changes to terms and conditions for bank staff if they would like to consider the higher rate of pay.

If you choose to change your role and this triggers a new contract then your continuous service continues, and you'll be moved to the terms and conditions of a Community Integrated Care contract. The terms and conditions of the new contract will be available to you to review before you make this change but any terms and conditions from the old contract (whether less or more favourable) would stop at the point of the start date of your new role.

Where possible, all Inspire Frontline Leaders will be mapped into one of our Service Leader roles, which is required as our systems and reporting are built on this structure. We of course recognise that TUPE protects terms and conditions at the point of transfer, this ‘mapping’ will not change terms and conditions but will set the transferring colleagues on the correct pathways within our systems.

Maxtime is only used in Frontline services. We are working on Maxtime for Support Services - this is still in development and hasn't been launched at Community Integrated Care yet.

SSSC membership is paid by the employee.

Community Integrated Care don't have any additional regional offices in Aberdeenshire.

There is an annual leave purchase scheme which colleagues can take advantage of. Colleague wellbeing is really important to us - we encourage all colleagues to use their full annual leave entitlement before the end of the annual leave year to ensure that they get the rest and time away from work to recharge and as such we don't "buy" annual leave back

Our Expenses App is called Unit4 Expenses. Our Finance Teams primarily use a system called Agresso, which is also the system we use to store our people data and run some of our key HR processes.

Currently there are no roles at risk within Community Integrated Care as there have been no direct match of roles identified through the consultation process. If any colleague has a question about why their role is at risk or believes there is a direct match, this should be brought to their individual redundancy consultation meeting. As we were aware that the merger was being planned for we actively held vacancies wherever possible, or made roles temporary so we could offer as many alternatives as possible to any affected people.

At Community Integrated Care, 'time off in lieu' is remunerated as overtime. For Support Services colleagues we don't operate a formal TOIL process but we do encourage colleagues to take time back if they have had to work over and above their contracted hours.

Support Services colleagues and teams tend to manage cover over the festive period within each team - Community Integrated Care doesn't operate a Christmas shut-down. We ask colleagues to take the 25th and 26th and the 1st (or their substitute days) - as these are fixed bank holidays. If this lands on a non-working day (if you work the 4-day week) then we ask colleagues to take the next again day, or bank the day if that's not possible. Each year, each team has different requirements for cover and we work out a plan for cover with colleagues in advance.

Permanent employees will be entitled to access the same benefits as Community Integrated Care colleagues - find out more about these at: www.communityintegratedcare.co.uk/colleague-benefits/ or by clicking here. .

We encourage Support Services colleagues to visit services and to attend events where they can.

Colleagues need to request the time off for all Public Holidays.

Our Frontline learning experience, GROW, is a hybrid of both online learning and face-to-face classroom learning, depending on the nature of the subject.

Yes! This recognition will still apply.

Their pay date will be aligned to their main role.

Colleagues should continue as they have been doing. There will be no changes to the way credit union loans are paid back.

Training Records will be transferred and any in-date prior learning will be recognised and form part of each colleague’s learner journey.

We are replacing the Wi-Fi like for like in all Inspire locations. The new Wi-Fi kit is brand-new and uses the latest technology standards so this should improve the quality and reliability of the signal. A couple of sites have been identified by Inspire IT colleagues where Wi-Fi is historically problematic, and we are therefore proposing to increase the number of Wi-Fi repeaters in these locations. If you really struggle with Wi-Fi coverage, please report this to Paul Guntrip.

All teams will be keen to take opportunities to get to know each other, so these will be considered once the merge in the region is fully completed.

At Community Integrated Care, we have a democratically elected group of colleagues (elected under the rules of the ICE regulations) called GameChangers. Our GameChangers are an invaluable resource within the organisation and provide an effective channel of communication between all levels of the Charity and the Senior Leadership Team. They do a brilliant job in sharing information, brining attention to key matters and concerns of colleagues, shaping the future of the charity by inputting into key initiatives and being the formal consultation forum for any collective processes e.g. TUPE and Redundancy or change. The Executive Team made the decision many years ago when brining the GameChangers forum together that they wanted to be directly connected to the Charity’s front line teams and not have the conduit of an external body, like a union, adding an extra level in any discussions. A direct link to the workforce is essential in our charity for making key, fast and effective decisions and shaping direction. We have absolutely no objection to Trade Unions and the work they do, and any colleague who is a member of a trade union is absolutely entitled to remain a member, they will not suffer any detriment for being a union member. Based on our relationship with and the brilliant work done by GameChanagers, we have determined that there is no additional benefit to be obtained by requiring colleagues to pay membership to a trade union in order to have a voice. We know Inspire have a similar view as they also took the decision not to recognise a trade union.

Community Integrated Care do not currently have any connections with credit unions. We will continue with any current arrangements that Inspire colleagues have.

Maxtime only uses three points of data from a fingerprint (not the entire print), we understand this perspective and this is something we have reassured our colleagues of. At no point will the system ever have a record of your entire fingerprint. This three-point scan will not be used for any other purpose and would not be able to identify you outside of the system.

Yes, any length of service with Inspire would contribute towards this.

Relief/Bank colleagues are eligible for some products, but not all - for example, they cannot access loans but can view wage advances.

Your Birth Certificate and proof of National Insurance (i.e. P45) can be used as proof.

For any tenders that come up within Angus or any other LA, we will assess how it fits with delivering Best Lives Possible, what capacity and expertise we have to deliver on the contract and if the provision fits with our delivery model. We have a local Business Development team who provide lots of support to operational colleagues around tender bids, securing new work and mobilising new services. The SDS framework contract in Angus will continue with no change. In terms of growth, it would be great to work with the local team to understand the need, the referral process and how we might grow in both Forfar and across the rest of Angus. We are incredibly excited to work in Angus and if there’s potential for growth, we will support that where possible.

Yes, Bank Staff will get paid their holidays monthly.

All Bank/Relief staff transferred with their existing Terms and Conditions in the spirit of TUPE on the 1st August - please refer to Question 4 and 13 for more information on what TUPE means for Bank/Relief Staff.

Community Integrated Care is one of the UK’s largest health and social care charities, supporting over 2500 people and employing 5200 incredible colleagues across Scotland and England. Like Inspire, Community Integrated Care was founded in 1988 and this year celebrated its 35th birthday, as Inspire will do in October. In 2022, Community Integrated Care launched its plan for the coming years, Best Lives Possible, which outlines the charity’s belief that whatever your ambitions or aspirations, you should always be supported to live a life full of choice, opportunity and possibilities. Community Integrated Care have underpinned this strategy with huge investment in lots of key areas, including Partnerships & Communities, Learning & Development and Technology. You’ll get the opportunity to meet the team at Community Integrated Care in the coming weeks and find out lots more about life at the charity and the opportunities and benefits that you’ll experience from the charities joining together.

In recent years, Inspire’s Leadership Team have been considering what the charity’s next step should be – given that any ambitious plans for development must be balanced with decisions that are financially sensible. To protect the charity’s long-term sustainability, whilst still innovating and realising ambitions for the future, we’ve concluded that the best way to achieve the vision is to align with a large care provider, which would provide stability and resources in a challenging operating environment. Community Integrated Care’s size and scale, as well as their extensive experience in innovation and technology is the main driver behind the merger for us. They have significant resource in key areas such as IT, Community Partnerships, Marketing and Learning & Development that’ll not only complement the work that we do but help us do more for our colleagues and the people we support. The merger is equally aligned with Community Integrated Care’s strategic ambitions. The charity’s plans are focussed on high-quality, sustainable growth – which the merger with Inspire provides. Inspire have a strong reputation in the sector and have consistently achieved positive Care Inspectorate grades, which makes us an excellent fit for Community Integrated Care’s Scottish operations. Importantly, given the uncertainty facing social care in Scotland, the merger also gives both charities an increased share of voice and therefore more opportunities to influence at a high level.

The proposed merger with Community Integrated Care amounts to a transfer under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 – commonly known as ‘TUPE’. Our frontline staff and frontline managers will continue to support people in our services as they do now, just as part of Community Integrated Care. We don’t anticipate any changes to the support we provide, however, there might be some differences in our ways of working. We’ll of course discuss these with you as we progress. As with any piece of work of this nature, there’s lots for us to consider in terms of how we practically integrate two organisations of this size and scale. As such, there’s still work for us to do to establish the full picture for all other teams – although at this stage, if there are any roles affected, we anticipate this will be a small number. It’s really important for us to assure you how much we absolutely recognise and value all of the skills, knowledge and experience within our teams and bringing our staff along with us on this journey is essential to the success of the merger. Right now, we’re preparing for a thorough period of TUPE consultation so that we can gather all of the information we need and have really good conversations with our staff. As part of this consultation, we will be working to minimise and manage the impact of the transfer on our teams and of course, we’ll talk to you about this every step of the way. To help us get to those discussions quickly, the first thing we will need to do is appoint elected employee representatives who will be spokespeople on behalf of staff in Operations and Business Support functions. We’ll be writing to all staff within the coming days with full details on the process and timescales for electing reps. The sooner we can do this, the sooner we can begin consultation and ideally, we’d like to be training our reps on 22nd June with a view to have the first meetings taking place in the days that follow. You can still ask your questions between now and then, and we’ll ensure that these are shared with your employee reps.

The proposed merger with Community Integrated Care amounts to a transfer under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 – commonly known as ‘TUPE’. This means that all Inspire colleagues (except for relief staff - more information below) will automatically transfer to Community Integrated Care (subject to consultation) on the same terms and conditions and that your continuity of employment will be preserved. Your pay, current terms and conditions of employment, and length of service are all protected under TUPE (except for certain occupational pension schemes – we have a separate FAQ all about this – see question 12). Under TUPE, there are a few exceptional reasons why a change is allowed to happen, for Economic, Technical or Organisational (ETO) reasons, but these would be very few e.g. if a change of pay date is decided, that would fall under ETO reasons and be discussed with you well in advance. Your employment and terms in your current role are protected by the TUPE regulations. Whilst we really hope that you transfer, if at the end of consultation, you choose not to transfer to Community Integrated Care under TUPE regulations, this will effectively be considered as your resignation. TUPE does not apply to people working for Inspire as relief staff, however relief staff are very important and there will be separate discussions with them about their options. There is also a specific FAQ about relief staff further down this page – see question 13. As with any piece of work of this nature, there’s lots for us to consider in terms of how we practically integrate two organisations of this size and scale. As such, there’s still work for us to do to establish the full picture for some teams – although at this stage, if there are any roles affected, we anticipate this will be a small number. It’s really important for us to assure you how much we absolutely recognise and value all of the skills, knowledge and experience within our teams and bringing our staff along with us on this journey is essential to the success of the merger. Right now, we’re preparing for a thorough period of TUPE consultation so that we can gather all of the information we need and have really good conversations with our staff. As part of this consultation, we will be working to minimise and manage the impact of the transfer on our teams and of course, we’ll talk to you about this every step of the way. After the merger, you may be interested in one of the many opportunities available for other roles within Community Integrated Care, and you will be able to apply for any of those new roles on Community Integrated Care terms.

We’ll now enter a period of consultation, and it is the intention for this to be complete, and the official transfer to take place, in August 2023. You will of course be kept updated on anything that might impact this date.

No. After the transfer date, Community Integrated Care will become your employer. In practical terms this means that on the transfer date (or shortly after) you might get a P45 from Inspire – but don’t worry, this is just for HMRC purposes and unless you have objected to the transfer you’ll automatically move to Community Integrated Care’s payroll.

Consultation, at its core, just means really good quality, two-way conversations. Formal consultation is a process of conversations about the merger / TUPE process and how they impact you and your employment. These involve Inspire – as your employer – talking to you alongside your elected representatives about the proposals, outlining what these mean for you and what your options are, and giving you the opportunity to ask any questions you might have or share any concerns. Usually there’ll be several rounds of consultation meetings to allow you to digest the information you’ve received and to have any necessary conversations with your employee representatives. You’ll have the option for individual conversations too.

Before we can begin the consultation period, we need to appoint elected employee representatives, who will be spokespeople on behalf of staff in Operations and Business Support functions, sharing your feedback and questions and supporting you with any information and assurance you need We’ll send full details about the process for electing your employee representatives a few days after the announcement of our intention to merge. Anyone can put themselves forward to be an employee representative and we’re aiming to have all employee reps in place and trained by 22nd June, so that we can begin consulting with everyone as soon as possible.

The employee representatives are elected to support with the transfer by ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard, and all questions are asked and answered. It’s a really key role to help ensure that colleagues have all of the information they need. Whilst you’ll get time off rota to complete your duties during the transfer, your role will otherwise continue as normal and your duties as a representative will end after the merger is complete. However, if you enjoy the role of employee representative and think you have a lot to offer as a voice for the people you work with, you could consider GameChangers – Community Integrated Care’s Colleague Forum. Opportunities to be part of the Forum arise quite frequently, so keep an eye out for those after the merger is complete!

Under TUPE regulations, your terms and conditions of employment are protected and will therefore not change. The consultation process will help you understand this in more detail so please make sure you share any questions you have.

No – your terms and conditions are protected for the duration of your employment under TUPE regulations, unless something triggers a change in your contract such as a new role or a temporary change to bank / relief – in which case, your contract would change to a Community Integrated Care contract.

Community Integrated Care will offer an auto-enrolment pension similar to Inspire’s. Anyone currently in the auto-enrolment scheme will be enrolled into Community Integrated Care’s scheme. You will be given information as to how to move your pension from one scheme to the other if you wish. There are some different rules for Occupational Pension schemes under TUPE so there may be some changes to pensions which we will discuss with you through the consultation. We will be speaking to any colleagues on either a NESPF, NHS, or other Local Government pension individually to support the correct transfer of their pension arrangements.

Relief staff are incredibly important to the support provided by Inspire. We know that amongst this community, there’s a wealth of passionate and long-serving colleagues, and we very much hope you’ll be excited to be part of this journey too. The process of transition is slightly different for relief staff as TUPE regulations don’t apply to them. Rather than automatically transferring over to Community Integrated Care, relief staff will be invited to join the charity’s bank colleagues. All relief staff will receive a communication outlining what they need to do to join Community Integrated Care’s bank (their name for relief staff). If relief staff choose to join (which we really hope they do!) their role will continue as it does now to ensure that continuity for our teams – just with a Community Integrated Care bank agreement instead of Inspire. If you currently work for Inspire as a relief member of staff, you may also want to take this opportunity to decide whether you’d like to join Community Integrated Care on a more permanent basis and we’d love to explore that with you wherever we have live vacancies.

With all frontline staff continuing as normal in their roles as part of the merger, we anticipate the day-to-day impact on people supported to be minimal. There may be some changes to ways of working further down the line that impact people, for example, the system we use to record a person’s care plan and how we plan our rotas, however these won’t be detrimental to the support they receive. We’re confident that the impact of the merger on people supported will be positive. Community Integrated Care are well known for the opportunities they create for the people they support through their Partnerships & Communities Team. We’re hopeful that this, coupled with Inspire’s passion for events and value-added activities, will create some very special experiences and opportunities for the people we support. Finally, one of the main drivers behind the merger was for Inspire to be part of a larger organisation and access the innovative systems and technology that Community Integrated Care have – all of which will in turn make the lives of staff easier and allow you all to spend more time doing what you do best – supporting people to live great lives.

Whilst we don’t anticipate any changes to the support people receive, we know that communicating effectively with the people we support is really important. Our teams in services are best placed to manage this communication as they know the people we support best and understand their needs – so all managers have been provided with an easy-read guide to the merger to share with the people we support and guidance on how best to deliver this update. We’ve written to all families and guardians to tell them about the merger and to reassure them that there’ll be no detrimental impact on their family member. We’re also inviting all families to a webinar shortly to hear directly from Linda and share any questions they might have.

Inspire and Community Integrated Care have been in conversations for a few years now, however any formal discussions about future plans were, unfortunately, halted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Both charities stayed in close contact during that time and really got to know each other better. In fact, throughout the pandemic Community Integrated Care and Inspire were very supportive to each other in terms of guidance, policies, resources and ways of working. When the time was right in late 2022, we picked back up on the formal conversations around the merger, which has led us to where we are today.

In the short term, there’ll be no changes to the branding of Inspire. Inspire has some great projects that make us unique, such as our ‘Inspired By’ Day Services, and other special initiatives that we want to ensure are promoted in the right way. Over time, this will be considered again, however any changes to the branding will be done in a way that feels sensible and natural. Please note though, your employer will be Community Integrated Care on things like your payslip.

If you work in a service, we don't anticipate any immediate changes to your line management. In other teams, there may be a small number of roles affected by the transfer, which may result in some changes to structures. What’s important right now is that we run a thorough consultation process with everyone, and particularly anyone who is affected by the transfer, as that will give us a better picture of what the future will look like.

On a day-to-day basis, there won’t be any major immediate changes to how you support people – however as we work our way through the consultation, transfer and integration, we anticipate some changes to ways of working - although we’re confident that these won’t have any negative impact on the work that you do. We’ll be in regular communication with you all about these throughout the consultation and on-hand to discuss any questions or concerns you might have.

Whilst we don’t anticipate any changes to the support we provide, there may be some changes to elements of how we work, but we’ll be working to make sure that these changes are right for all of our staff and the people we support. It’s important to note that with or without the merger with Community Integrated Care, we saw ourselves on a journey of modernisation and innovation, so the likelihood is that we’d have been experiencing some change in any case – but all for the benefit of our people and the charity.

Both Inspire and Community Integrated Care are renowned for their approach to learning and by bringing these together, we’re going to create something special in the sector. Community Integrated Care have recently launched an industry-leading learning programme called GROW, and we’re really looking forward to you being able to take advantage of this fantastic platform. So, whilst it’s likely there’ll be more learning, it will be relevant to your role, engaging, and most importantly, it’ll reflect the vast breadth of skills and capabilities that are required to do your fantastic work. Just to reassure you though, we’ll be taking a pragmatic approach – for example, if you’ve recently completed some training, you won’t be expected to retake this – your existing training record will be considered.

We’re equally proud of our learning offer, especially our SVQ centre. We won’t be losing any of our offer – in fact we’ll be enhancing it. Community Integrated Care have considerably more experience in areas such as leadership development, future and workforce planning and so, whilst in time things may be delivered a little differently, we won’t be losing anything that you currently receive.

Absolutely – in the coming weeks there’ll be lots of opportunities to hear from Community Integrated Care’s Executive Team through their a series of Welcome webinars, and you'll be able meet their local leadership team, who'll be out and about visiting Inspire services. Together with Community Integrated Care we’ll be providing regular updates and resources on the www.welcomeinspire.co.uk microsite.

There are several projects, initiatives and opportunities at Community Integrated Care that make them stand out in our sector as a great place to work: GROW – Community Integrated Care recently launched a sector-leading frontline learning platform called GROW. GROW goes beyond the standard mandatory courses often found in the social care sector and provides interactive, engaging and bite-sized learning on the full range of skills, capabilities and talents required to work in the sector – including topics such as Person Led Support, Positive Behavioural Support and Supporting Personal Finances. Partnerships & Communities Opportunities – Community Integrated Care’s Partnerships & Communities Team is renowned for the experiences and opportunities it creates for the people they support and their colleagues – whether its volunteering at global sporting events, meeting inspirational figures or getting people active in their communities, there’s always something really special for staff and the people they support to get involved with. This of course all builds on the work that Inspire currently do with our added value activities across all areas. Systems e.g. Office 365, Nourish & Maxtime – one of the main drivers behind the merger is Community Integrated Care’s extensive experience in a variety of transformative systems and technologies including the Microsoft Office 365 suite, Nourish, which allows staff to record care on-the-go using a handheld mobile device, and Maxtime, a platform that makes clocking in and out of shifts really easy whilst ensuring staff are paid accurately for the hours they work. Learn to LEAD is Community Integrated Care’s annual development programme for Support Workers who feel ready to take the next step in their career into a leadership role. Over a 12-18 month period, Learn to LEAD enables current Support Workers to take part in a series of training sessions while gaining in-role experience – developing all the knowledge needed to take on the role of frontline manager when a vacancy becomes available. This will not affect people already undertaking Inspire's current management programme. Equity, Diversity & Inclusion – Community Integrated Care are proud to have their own EDI strategy, ‘A Place I Belong’ which outlines our charity’s commitments to creating a fair, inclusive and equal organisation for staff and the people they support – including the launch of Inclusion Networks and specialist Diversity & Inclusion learning for all staff.

After 15 years in the team and six years as CEO, Linda is committed to her legacy of being one of long-term sustainability for the charity. To support this, Linda’s intention is to remain as CEO for around six months after the merger has taken place to ensure a smooth transition for everyone involved. After this period, Linda will be stepping down to spend time with her family, before deciding what she’d like to do next. Linda will leave the Inspire teams in the exceptionally capable hands of Sara Murphy, Community Integrated Care’s Managing Director for Scotland.

Whilst our Board of Trustees will step down at the point of transfer, two of our long-serving Trustees, Gillian Thompson and Allan Dick, will be joining Community Integrated Care’s Scotland Committee and will be on-hand to support the successful transition of Inspire. Linda’s intention is to remain as CEO for around six months after the merger has taken place to ensure a smooth transition for everyone involved. After this period, Linda will be stepping down to spend time with her family, before deciding what she’d like to do next. Linda will leave the teams in the exceptionally capable hands of Sara Murphy, Community Integrated Care’s Managing Director for Scotland. Both Inspire and Community Integrated Care very much recognise the skills, expertise and knowledge within the wider Leadership Team and are looking to ensure as much stability as possible going forward. What’s most important is that we now discuss the future with people throughout the consultation process so that everyone has the opportunity for a really good quality conversation about what this means for them.

In the days following the announcement, we’ll be writing to you all to explain the process of becoming an employee representative throughout the consultation period. This will broadly consist of a nomination process and election to choose from nominated candidates. All colleagues are welcome to put themselves forward to be an employee rep. We’re aiming to have all reps in post and trained on the 22nd June, with first meetings taking place in the few days afterwards. Once in post, the role of our employee reps will be to listen to your concerns and questions, seek answers to these and keep you informed of the response to your queries. They will essentially be spokespeople for the wider workforce throughout the consultation process. In the meantime, while we appoint and train our reps, you can still submit your questions – either via your Line Manager, by emailing GetInTouch@inspiremail.org.uk or by using the contact form on this microsite.

Community Integrated Care’s size and scale, as well as their extensive experience in innovation and technology is the main driver behind the merger for us. They have significant resource in key areas such as IT, Community Partnerships, Marketing and Learning & Development that’ll not only complement the work that we do but help us do more for our colleagues and the people we support. As a smaller provider, it would be tricky for us to achieve a lot of this on our own, so merging with a like-minded organisation that shares our values was the best option for us. The merger is equally aligned with Community Integrated Care’s strategic ambitions. The charity’s plans are focused on high-quality, sustainable growth – which the merger with Inspire provides. Inspire have a strong reputation in the sector and have consistently achieved positive Care Inspectorate grades, which makes us an excellent fit for Community Integrated Care’s Scottish operations. Importantly, given the uncertainty facing social care in Scotland, the merger also gives both sides an increased share of voice and therefore more opportunities to influence at a high level.

Inspire and Community Integrated Care have different monthly pay dates and so right now, we need to spend some time properly looking into the practicalities of this and decide how best to manage it. We don’t want you to worry though, if there are any changes to pay dates proposed, we will discuss these with you in full during the consultation, and will talk to you about the practicalities of any change to make sure that no-one is negatively impacted, especially if there might be a difference in pay dates which might leave you in difficulty managing your finances. There will be plenty of support available. Community Integrated Care have a partnership with a great organisation called Salary Finance – part of their offer is that they can provide you with an ‘advance’ on your pay of a percentage of the hours you’ve worked which gives you more flexibility about how you can access your salary.

Under TUPE regulations, your current pay and terms and conditions are protected, so will not change. Under TUPE, there are a few exceptional reasons why a change is allowed to happen, for Economic, Technical or Organisational (ETO) reasons, but these would be very few e.g. if a change of pay date is decided, that would fall under ETO reasons and be discussed with you well in advance. Community Integrated Care will offer an auto enrolment pension similar to Inspire’s. Anyone in the auto enrolment scheme will be enrolled into Community Integrated Care’s scheme. You will be given information as to how to move your pension from one scheme to the other if you wish. There are some different rules for Occupational Pension schemes under TUPE so there may be some changes to pensions which we will discuss with you through the consultation. We will be speaking to any colleagues on either a NESPF, NHS, or other Local Government pension individually to support the correct transfer of their pension arrangements.

Now that we’ve announced the news, we’ll begin the more formal processes involved whilst also doing some further information-gathering so that we can fully establish the impact of the merger. The first stage of the process is for us to appoint employee representatives, whose role it is to share your feedback and questions and to support you with any information and assurance you need. All colleagues are welcome to apply to become employee representatives, and we’ll be outlining the process for this within a few days after the announcement of our intention to merge. We aim to have all our reps in place and trained by 22nd June at which time we can then enter a period of collective consultation, where you’ll all be in discussions about the merger and what this means for your employment. Consultation will last for several weeks, with regular communications, service visits and opportunities to find out more and provide your feedback. This is the most important part of the process for you all, and the quicker we get through the election process, the sooner we can move onto consultation. Following the completion of the TUPE consultation period, we’re aiming for the merger to formally take place in August 2023. There’ll then be a period of integration that’ll last around two years while we transfer systems, technology and learning without overwhelming our teams. Then all that’s left to do is to enjoy your employment at Community Integrated Care and continue your fantastic work with the people you support.

One of the main benefits to us merging with Community Integrated Care is the wealth of fantastic systems and technology that we’d have access to as a result – so there are going to be some changes to the platforms and ways of working that you’re used to. We’d really urge you to see this as a brilliant opportunity to spend less time on the tasks that take you away from what you love and use systems that make it easier to deliver great support. Our business support teams will also benefit from transitioning to using more integrated systems which will enhance and streamline their day-to-day roles. We know that it can be daunting to get used to new systems though, so we’ll be making sure that these are implemented in a timescale and order that makes sense for you and your teams. Community Integrated Care have extensive experience in rolling out large-scale IT changes so will complete this in phases and provide lots of support throughout. We’ll share more details of how this will practically work over the next few weeks.

In the short term, yes – for a period of around 3-6 months whilst we work through some of the implementation of systems and ways of working. In the longer term, all being well, we’ll transfer all of our data and file structures to Community Integrated Care’s systems and use these instead. We know that it can be daunting getting used to new systems, so we’re working to an Integration Plan that allows us to get to grips with Community Integrated Care’s systems and technology as soon as we can, but in a way that feels manageable for you all.

It’s still a bit too early for us to give a definitive answer on this as it’s part of the Operational Integration Plan that we’re continuing to work through. You’ll likely move over to new policies gradually and we will support you with any changes as part of the integration plan. For now though, you should work to your current policies until informed otherwise.

We know how busy you are already and will ensure that the integration is managed in a way that takes this into consideration. We’re working on a thorough Integration Plan to support us to manage the merger in the best possible way, being mindful of the existing pressures on teams and the wider needs of the charity. Our intention is to introduce systems and processes to teams in cohorts, in line with the existing pressures on teams and the needs of the business. We’re also bringing in extra resource on the ground to help support a smooth transition throughout these changes, so we’re confident that this will be a positive experience for you all. However, if you are concerned about any part of the integration, please speak to your Line Manager or employee reps.

We’re working to an Integration Plan, which is basically the approach we’ll take when bringing teams on board with new systems, learning, processes and equipment. We understand how overwhelming it might feel to get up to speed with lots of new ways of working, so we’ll be doing this in a way that makes sense for you, your colleagues and the people you support. We’ll bring areas on in cohorts, starting with teams in Moray, so that we can adjust our approach as we go if we find there are things we need to speed up or slow down. We anticipate this will be over a period of around 12 months, so that it feels manageable and positive for everyone involved.

As part of the legal process surrounding the merger, we’ve been in regular contact with commissioners who have been really positive about it. One commissioner described it as an “innovative” move for social care in North East Scotland, so we’re confident that they’re really pleased with what they’ve seen so far.

As ways of working have changed over the last few years after Covid-19, we’ve been considering best use of our offices separately from any conversations around the merger. No decision has been made yet on how we’ll make use of these in the future, but we’ll continue to review this as we have been doing previously.

If you work in an office and currently work flexibly, e.g. you work part of our week at home, then we don’t see this changing. Community Integrated Care also have flexible working practices in place, and in fact are further along this road than Inspire are, so you may find that there’s more options for you to work flexibly after you transfer. A number of Support Services colleagues at Community Integrated Care work their full-time hours over a 4-day week, which means they get a 3-day weekend. Feedback is that this provides colleagues with time away from work to rest and recharge and helps them to manage work-life balance. It is important that we consider service delivery and support when implementing any changes to working patterns and Community Integrated Care have a tried and tested change model to manage this transition. We will work with you as part of the integration to discuss this and plan this in, if it is something you want to explore.

We’re really proud of the work that has gone into our SVQ centre and see this as a brilliant opportunity to see that work go even further. Community Integrated Care see the accreditation as a real positive for Inspire, so it’s something they’d love to continue with and learn more about.

Again, Community Integrated Care see our Inspired By services as a point of difference and innovation at Inspire and are keen to learn more about the model we’ve established and see how this can be taken forward.

We don’t envisage any immediate changes to how Inspire communicate and we’ll certainly keep our Inspire Matters newsletter for a while. The two charities will then need to get to know each other more and understand how to best to make sure everyone has regular access to the information, resources and opportunities that you need.

Nothing will change in the short / medium term with red risk cards – they’re key to managing risk in our services and will continue as normal.

There’ll be no changes to our properties – we’ll be in discussions with landlords throughout the process to make any necessary changes to leases.

There are no planned changes to any of our residential Care Inspectorate registrations. For Supported Living, this is something that we'll work though and figure out as the two organisations come together over the coming months. So, if you’re a registered manager for a residential care service, there’ll be no change to this. If you’re a registered manager in a Supported Living service, this may depend on the integration plan and how registrations of the combined organisation are set up with the Care Inspectorate.

Yes - all of Inspire's services will merge with Community Integrated Care.

You’ll work as you do now – whether this is in one location or across multiple sites. As we work through the Integration Plan, the opportunity may arise to work in a service more convenient for you or to take on relief hours at an additional service – however you won’t be required to as a result of the merger.

Agency workers are a key resource to ensure we can deliver support. We will ensure that where agency is required, there is no disruption to service delivery. Existing agency contracts will be invited to join Community Integrated Care’s preferred supplier list. One of Community Integrated Care’s big drivers is to invest in new and innovative recruitment approaches to reduce reliance on agency staff, in order to reinvest the money spent in other areas of the charity. After the transfer, you’ll have the opportunity to hear lots more from Community Integrated Care’s senior leaders on their strategic ambitions and plans for the future.

Your contract will transfer to Community Integrated Care exactly as it is now – if you are in probation you will continue in probation until the end date, and in line with your current probation policy.

We understand that you’ll of course have further questions about what is happening and how this impacts you and the people you support. In the first instance, please speak to your Line Manager or employee representatives, who will collate your questions and ensure these are answered. If your question is directly for the Leadership Team at Inspire, please email GetInTouch@inspiremail.org.uk and one of the team will be in touch. Alternatively, you can share your questions here on the microsite (www.welcomeinspire.co.uk), using the ‘Get In Touch’ page.

Further information and queries around individual roles and structures will be discussed throughout the consultation process. Community Integrated Care is proud to have many initiatives and opportunities that support the progression and development of talent from within the charity. In 2022, the charity proudly launched Learn to LEAD, a 15-month learning programme for Support Workers who feel ready to take the next step as a frontline leader, which has already supported several fantastic Support Workers to become Service Leaders since its inception. Learn to LEAD is an annual programme, and accepts applications from around the organisation with lots of support available from local People teams and line managers. For colleagues who are already in leadership roles, our LEAD programme is a three-day immersive learning experience, aimed at helping managers develop the skills they need to lead great teams including communications and leadership styles, the importance of feedback and so much more! There’s a one-day equivalent of LEAD for managers in Support Services roles too. For colleagues in leadership and Support Services roles, Community Integrated Care has implemented an annual performance review cycle, during which colleagues have great conversations with their line manager on how they’ve been performing against their objectives, their career ambitions and what steps are required to help them become a reality. Community Integrated Care has opportunities for Support Workers to deepen their expertise and responsibility without entering a leadership role by becoming an Advanced Support Worker (dependant on the specific needs and requirements of the service). Finally, all colleagues have regular 1-1 development conversations with their line managers, called You Can! Meetings, during which they’re encouraged to discuss their future plans and development goals.

Unfortunately, visa sponsorship is not something Community Integrated Care are able to offer. Community Integrated Care have considered, at great length, applying for a sponsorship licence however with the administrative and financial obligations required it is not possible at the moment. This is something that they review regularly, and keep on file any prospective colleagues who have this requirement so that if it’s something they can move forward with in the future, they can be in touch.

We appreciate that many of you will be keen to know more about Community Integrated Care’s organisational and operational structure to better understand where your own role sits. For the time being, as we prepare for our consultation process, we’re focussing on collating your questions, answering everything that we can for the time being and taking away anything that requires further consideration or can only be discussed as part of the consultation and in conjunction with your employee reps. It’s important that when we share further information about Community Integrated Care’s structure, that we do so with the right context and discussion about specific team and roles and how they align. To share this without those conversations may cause unnecessary confusion or concern, so we’re keen that we share this information with you in the most useful way possible. Once your employee reps are in place, we will absolutely be talking to you about this in detail, and any impact to your role.

You may have previously seen the full title of Community Integrated Care abbreviated to ‘CIC’. Whilst these both refer to the same organisation, it’s really important that we use the charity’s full name when referring to them. Community Integrated Care showcases exactly what they do: they work in the community, delivering integrated service, by people who care. Using acronyms not only dilutes this powerful message, but it has the potential to create confusion by mistaking the charity for someone else – such as a Community Interest Company, which are often also known as a ‘CIC’. So lets start as we mean to go on and ensure we use the full name going forward – Community Integrated Care!

All properties owned and leased by Inspire will transfer as part of the merger – there’ll be no impact on the people we support as a result.

As this is a personal registration for you as an individual, this will stay with you when you transfer. However, you are required to update your SSSC profile to inform them of any changes to your employment – including who you work for. As this is an individual registration, we’re unable to do this for you. To change your information, visit the SSSC website and go to ‘MySSSC’ to log in and change your details. You have six months to do this from the date the change takes place.

As both charity's prepare for the merger, there are some key activities that need to begin to support the transition, so we are aware that Community Integrated Care have a small number of adverts live for temporary support in some teams. We will be speaking with you very soon to explain more about TUPE, and about what the transfer means for you and for your role during the consultation. In the meantime, we have been working closely with Community Integrated Care in our shared objective to minimise impact on colleagues and we are clear that these temporary posts are not permanent and will not impact the consultation.

Community Integrated Care operates with three levels of Service Leader – Service Leader 1, Service Leader 2 and Service Leader 3. There are lots of considerations to take into account but primarily these levels are based on the size of services and the number of hours delivered. The levels ensure the right leadership and development is in place to provide excellent support to both colleagues and the people we support. SL1 is a development role for new Service Leaders, with its own smaller cluster and remit, and reports to and is supported by a SL3. Our SL2 role is the development pathway for an experienced SL1 who is ready to progress, or whose cluster of services / hours has grown organically. The SL3 position is for our more experienced leaders who have grown their cluster and often they have a SL1 reporting to them – this role is the development pathway for anyone looking to progress to a Regional Manager role.

Frontline Managers at Community Integrated Care are salaried and paid on the 15th of each month for the whole of the previous month. Support Workers are paid hourly on the 15th of each month for the whole of the previous month. Support Services colleagues are paid on the 28th of the month for that month. As part of this change we would offer advances and bridging loans directly to colleagues and these solutions would be outside of Salary Finance. Whilst Salary Finance can offer low interest loans and salary advances, these are not the options we would look to when supporting colleagues through this change. We wouldn't ask any colleague to take out a loan, or put themselves in debt to support through a pay date change.

We understand that document storage and the process of making any changes can be a long and intensive process. We do have secure storage options and will work with you on the best storage options and the process for moving documents, if this is required.

We'll be doing an email migration of all of the old emails from Gmail into Outlook. This will take a few months due to the huge volume of emails - we'll therefore ask you to check both accounts in the interim. If it's easier, you are welcome to put a rule in your Gmail to divert any new ones to Outlook - we can assist with this on the IT Welcome Day. Gmail emails can be transferred and archived in Outlook. Please note that Community Integrated Care's email policy means that emails are retained up to seven years, so anything older than this will be deleted.

Yes - if there is a formal flexible working agreement in place then this will continue. We are advocates for flexible working so are keen to support all colleagues to work flexibly, provided the needs of the people we support are met. Whilst the 9 day fortnight isn't a formal option available in the charity, if this is your current working pattern this can continue. If you want to consider this as a new working pattern, we can consider this - we are really happy to talk about flexible working.

Community Integrated Care's Death in Service benefit is 2 x salary for colleagues who have worked with the charity for 12 months or more and is subject to the rules of the scheme. We are aware that colleagues will have 6 x death in service as part of their Inspire contract and this will continue for anyone with this contract. This scheme will close for new colleagues at the point of the merger.

We have worked hard over the years to invest in the frontline colleague pay rate. Each year we review our pay and benefits and to date, the decision has been to invest primarily in frontline pay rates over other benefits, based on the feedback from our colleagues. We continue to review pay and benefits and where it is possible, affordable and sustainable to do so we will invest in other benefits.

All expenses that are in line with our expenses policy will be paid - so this will depend on what the expense is.

By Operational Frontline leaders we mean Senior Support Managers, Support Managers, or Assistant Support Managers etc. - so anyone that leads a service. Support Services / Back Office roles are roles which support operations - roles in Finance, HR, and Quality for example.

Community Integrated Care follows both depending on where colleagues live. Scotland bank holidays apply for Scotland colleagues.

Service Leaders at Community Integrated Care set the rotas for their services. We are aware that you have a slightly different model, particularly for Relief and Agency workers, and we are looking forward to learning more about this.

Our Expenses App can be accessed on any smartphone with an internet connection - including people's own personal phones. If any colleague doesn't have access to a smartphone and needs to use a work device to access the Expenses App, they can report this to their Line Manager who will be able to support.

Absolutely. As we start to move through each cohort we will engage with colleagues at the very beginning, and we will go through the process collaboratively as a team.

It is envisaged that the 'On Call' process will change and will move from being provided by Operational Frontline into Community Integrated Care's Virtual Care Centre (VCC). The VCC is a 24-hour staffed service with escalations throughout the regions. No exact date has been determined for this change and it will be fully discussed at the time. Community Integrated Care's own 'On Call' is in the process of transitioning from regional to VCC and this will continue after the merger.

Relief colleagues will transfer in the spirit of TUPE and therefore we will honour all terms and conditions, including current rate of pay. This doesn't prevent future changes to terms and conditions for bank staff if they would like to consider the higher rate of pay.

If you choose to change your role and this triggers a new contract then your continuous service continues, and you'll be moved to the terms and conditions of a Community Integrated Care contract. The terms and conditions of the new contract will be available to you to review before you make this change but any terms and conditions from the old contract (whether less or more favourable) would stop at the point of the start date of your new role.

Where possible, all Inspire Frontline Leaders will be mapped into one of our Service Leader roles, which is required as our systems and reporting are built on this structure. We of course recognise that TUPE protects terms and conditions at the point of transfer, this ‘mapping’ will not change terms and conditions but will set the transferring colleagues on the correct pathways within our systems.

Maxtime is only used in Frontline services. We are working on Maxtime for Support Services - this is still in development and hasn't been launched at Community Integrated Care yet.

SSSC membership is paid by the employee.

Community Integrated Care don't have any additional regional offices in Aberdeenshire.

There is an annual leave purchase scheme which colleagues can take advantage of. Colleague wellbeing is really important to us - we encourage all colleagues to use their full annual leave entitlement before the end of the annual leave year to ensure that they get the rest and time away from work to recharge and as such we don't "buy" annual leave back

Our Expenses App is called Unit4 Expenses. Our Finance Teams primarily use a system called Agresso, which is also the system we use to store our people data and run some of our key HR processes.

Currently there are no roles at risk within Community Integrated Care as there have been no direct match of roles identified through the consultation process. If any colleague has a question about why their role is at risk or believes there is a direct match, this should be brought to their individual redundancy consultation meeting. As we were aware that the merger was being planned for we actively held vacancies wherever possible, or made roles temporary so we could offer as many alternatives as possible to any affected people.

At Community Integrated Care, 'time off in lieu' is remunerated as overtime. For Support Services colleagues we don't operate a formal TOIL process but we do encourage colleagues to take time back if they have had to work over and above their contracted hours.

Support Services colleagues and teams tend to manage cover over the festive period within each team - Community Integrated Care doesn't operate a Christmas shut-down. We ask colleagues to take the 25th and 26th and the 1st (or their substitute days) - as these are fixed bank holidays. If this lands on a non-working day (if you work the 4-day week) then we ask colleagues to take the next again day, or bank the day if that's not possible. Each year, each team has different requirements for cover and we work out a plan for cover with colleagues in advance.

Permanent employees will be entitled to access the same benefits as Community Integrated Care colleagues - find out more about these at: www.communityintegratedcare.co.uk/colleague-benefits/ or by clicking here. .

We encourage Support Services colleagues to visit services and to attend events where they can.

Colleagues need to request the time off for all Public Holidays.

Our Frontline learning experience, GROW, is a hybrid of both online learning and face-to-face classroom learning, depending on the nature of the subject.

Yes! This recognition will still apply.

Their pay date will be aligned to their main role.

Colleagues should continue as they have been doing. There will be no changes to the way credit union loans are paid back.

Training Records will be transferred and any in-date prior learning will be recognised and form part of each colleague’s learner journey.

We are replacing the Wi-Fi like for like in all Inspire locations. The new Wi-Fi kit is brand-new and uses the latest technology standards so this should improve the quality and reliability of the signal. A couple of sites have been identified by Inspire IT colleagues where Wi-Fi is historically problematic, and we are therefore proposing to increase the number of Wi-Fi repeaters in these locations. If you really struggle with Wi-Fi coverage, please report this to Paul Guntrip.

All teams will be keen to take opportunities to get to know each other, so these will be considered once the merge in the region is fully completed.

At Community Integrated Care, we have a democratically elected group of colleagues (elected under the rules of the ICE regulations) called GameChangers. Our GameChangers are an invaluable resource within the organisation and provide an effective channel of communication between all levels of the Charity and the Senior Leadership Team. They do a brilliant job in sharing information, brining attention to key matters and concerns of colleagues, shaping the future of the charity by inputting into key initiatives and being the formal consultation forum for any collective processes e.g. TUPE and Redundancy or change. The Executive Team made the decision many years ago when brining the GameChangers forum together that they wanted to be directly connected to the Charity’s front line teams and not have the conduit of an external body, like a union, adding an extra level in any discussions. A direct link to the workforce is essential in our charity for making key, fast and effective decisions and shaping direction. We have absolutely no objection to Trade Unions and the work they do, and any colleague who is a member of a trade union is absolutely entitled to remain a member, they will not suffer any detriment for being a union member. Based on our relationship with and the brilliant work done by GameChanagers, we have determined that there is no additional benefit to be obtained by requiring colleagues to pay membership to a trade union in order to have a voice. We know Inspire have a similar view as they also took the decision not to recognise a trade union.

Community Integrated Care do not currently have any connections with credit unions. We will continue with any current arrangements that Inspire colleagues have.

Maxtime only uses three points of data from a fingerprint (not the entire print), we understand this perspective and this is something we have reassured our colleagues of. At no point will the system ever have a record of your entire fingerprint. This three-point scan will not be used for any other purpose and would not be able to identify you outside of the system.

Yes, any length of service with Inspire would contribute towards this.

Relief/Bank colleagues are eligible for some products, but not all - for example, they cannot access loans but can view wage advances.

Your Birth Certificate and proof of National Insurance (i.e. P45) can be used as proof.

For any tenders that come up within Angus or any other LA, we will assess how it fits with delivering Best Lives Possible, what capacity and expertise we have to deliver on the contract and if the provision fits with our delivery model. We have a local Business Development team who provide lots of support to operational colleagues around tender bids, securing new work and mobilising new services. The SDS framework contract in Angus will continue with no change. In terms of growth, it would be great to work with the local team to understand the need, the referral process and how we might grow in both Forfar and across the rest of Angus. We are incredibly excited to work in Angus and if there’s potential for growth, we will support that where possible.

Yes, Bank Staff will get paid their holidays monthly.

All Bank/Relief staff transferred with their existing Terms and Conditions in the spirit of TUPE on the 1st August - please refer to Question 4 and 13 for more information on what TUPE means for Bank/Relief Staff.