Commentary on provisions of Act Section13: Facility Time: publication requirements
This section inserts a new section 172A into the 1992 Act enabling a Minister of the Crown to make regulations requiring some or all public sector employers with one or more trade union representatives to publish information relating to time off taken by those representatives for trade union duties and activities (referred to as "facility time", which is defined in subsection (8) of the new section). The information that could be required to be published includes the number of such representatives by type, information about the employers’ spending on trade union duties and activities and the percentage of the aggregate amount of facility time taken by representatives in a specified period attributable to specified categories of duties or activities. The regulations may specify the form and timing of the publication.
	Public sector employers are employers that are either public authorities specified, or of a description specified, in regulations, or bodies that provide functions of a public nature that are wholly or mainly funded by public funds and are specified, in regulations. This would include central government bodies such as Civil Service departments including non-ministerial departments and their executive agencies, Non Departmental Public Bodies, local government bodies such as councils, fire and rescue authorities and Transport for London. It would also include NHS bodies (including trusts), state-funded schools (including academies and free schools) and public corporations such as the BBC. A public sector employer may be a body or may be an office holder.
	This is a new provision designed to promote transparency and public scrutiny of facility time; and to encourage those public sector employers to moderate the amount of money spent on facility time in light of that scrutiny.