No. 457/2021 Ref: DB/LS Date: 28 October 2021

TO ALL BRANCHES WITH BT MEMBERS

EMBARGOED UNTIL 3.00 P.M. ON THURSDAY 28 OCTOBER 2021

Dear Colleague,OPENREACH LTD. – Fibre Network Delivery (FND) Career Pathway Update

Letter to Branches 697/2019 set out the basis of an agreement relating to the career pathway within FND. The National Team (NT) has been in detailed discussions with the company on a revised and enhanced approach to that career pathway. These are additions to the existing process that will see more of our members move to the Advanced Engineer paypoint and grade. As well as improving the pathway for those carrying out repayments activities in the field, a new pathway has been developed which recognises the fibre build activities carried out by our members. For repayments activities, a brand new web based training package and buddying checklist has been developed to support our members on that pathway.

The revised approach will apply in FND from Monday 1 November 2021. The attached letter and slides set out the detail of both new approaches and form an additional agreement to that contained in the LTB mentioned above, specifically the pay uplift mechanism.

As a result of the agreement, circa 160 team members will progress based on the existing pathway provisions and a further circa 300 will progress based on the revised approach. Finally, it is expected that a further circa 250 team members will progress to the Advanced Engineer level in the next 4 months. It is important the Branches assist any individuals who believe they meet the existing or new criteria and are not contacted by their line manager.

The CWU and company will review the introduction of the new approach in the next 6 months. We would therefore welcome feedback from Branches on its rollout from a local perspective. The NT will continue to update Branches both directly and via the Regional Co-ordinators in the weeks and months ahead.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Bowman

Assistant Secretary

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