Following on with the seven key areas of activity:
- The Business Plan
- Creating a Project Board
- College Preparatory Work
- Engagement of a Job Evaluation Scheme provider to carry out the role evaluations.
- Completion of Robust Job Descriptions
- Pay and Grading
- Appeals
There are a number of these key activities which are being progressed since the last update was provided.
As of December 2025, there has been the creation of a Job Evaluation Project Board (JEPB). Further, the college preparatory work has moved forward with all colleges having since completed a Job Evaluation Sector Survey, whereby each college has provided a breakdown of data relating to the number of roles required to be evaluated via Job Evaluation.
We mentioned in the previous update that it was the intention to prepare the Business Case and thereafter submit this to the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and the Scottish Government for approval, however, further to a number of emails between the CES Team and the SFC, a meeting was arranged for 3 December 2025.
The Scottish Government/SFC now require that an independent Lessons Learned review be carried out to ensure confidence in the process going forward, that the project will deliver and that there will be no issues with implementation of Job Evaluation as there were before.
An initial scope of the review has now been received and the time parameters for the Lessons Learned have been confirmed as 6-10 weeks as from March 2026 to apply the procurement process to appoint an independent hearing authority and thereafter the preferred candidate(s) to conduct the investigation and final report which we do not know the timescales for.
Finally, whilst we await the conclusion of the Lessons Learned review process the CES Team and Trade Union colleagues continue to explore preparatory work required for Job Evaluation and we will of course continue to provide regular updates, as and when we have further relevant information to share.