Secondment as part of a recruitment
Where a candidate who is not currently employed by the NHS Business Service Authority (BSA) is successful in a BSA recruitment and they take the role on a secondment basis, the following steps should be followed:
- The BSA Lead Interviewer, when completing the Offer table, should select Secondment as the contract type. Once the Offer table is complete, they will then first need to move the candidate to the Offer stage and then move the vacancy.
- When the HR Shared Services (HRSS) Recruitment team picks the Offer up, they will issue an Offer letter and the pre-employment checks are carried out following the normal external candidate process.
- When the pre-employment checks are complete the HRSS Recruitment team complete the mandatory checks in the Electronic Staff Record (ESR) and move the candidate to the 'Ready for start date' status.
- When the candidate moves to the 'Ready for start date' stage the HRSS Contracts team will email the Recruiting Manager (RM) for confirmation of the candidate's start date and the name of their substantive employer. (If this has not been already provided.)
- The RM should confirm the above details by replying to the email to enable the HRSS Contracts team to prepare the secondment agreement.
- The RM should complete the Secondment Control Form (SECF) and upload it to the Document Transfer Service (DTS). When the transactional SECF is received by HRSS, the candidate can be added to ESR.
- HRSS will produce a secondment agreement which is emailed to the candidate. The candidate will be asked to provide the secondment agreement to their substantive organisation so this can be signed. The candidate should then sign and return a copy of the agreement which will be held in their employee file.
Non-recruitment secondment
The standard process to follow is the route through Trac however where a secondment agreement is made and it is not part of a recruitment campaign, HRSS would only require a SECF to be uploaded to the DTS. This enables a record to be created in ESR for the candidate.
Changes to a secondment
Where an amendment has been made to a secondment, for example, the secondment has been extended, an Employee Change Form (ECF) should be uploaded to the DTS advising of the amendment; this will enable the amendment to be made in ESR.
Should an external secondee return to their substantive role or organisation/employer early, a leaver form should be uploaded to the DTS advising of the amendment.
Terms and Conditions
During the secondment period, the secondee will remain an employee of their substantive employer, on the substantive's payroll, under the substantive's terms and conditions.
When on secondment, the substantive employer will continue to pay the employee's salary and the substantive employer should invoice BSA to recoup this.