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Out of Hours emergency cover expectations

Richard Lock

My church is a large premises with many rooms hired out during the day and evening. We have several part time staff (mostly cleaning/care taking) to support this as well as a part time centre coordinator who deals with bookings and supervises the other staff and day to day operations. 

An issue has cropped up regarding out of hours emergencies and how they are covered. Most church members believe it is the job of the coordinator to deal with out of hours issues, but nothing is explicitly stated in the employment contract or job description. The job holder is constantly contacted out of hours about all manor of issues (many minor) and has reached a stage of mostly 'sticking to agreed hours'. This is not a highly paid role at a little over £10.50 per hour so I'm not confident it would be considered reasonable for this person to be expected to be the first call in most circumstance.

Would a clause in a contract be enforceable if it existed? Because there are no other paid staff, the management structure effectively consists of volunteers, mostly elderly, and getting any rota of 'on call' people is proving elusive.

I want to get a sense of the legality, or otherwise, of the on call expectation before exploring other possible options. Any advice or tips from previous experience welcomed.

Parents
  • At first glance, it would seem that the problem here is less likely to be the out-of-hours responding than it is the nature of what the coordinator is being called to respond to.

    If it was a burst pipe, I suspect he/she would be more than happy to rush to get things fixed and under control. The problem has only arisen because he/she is being called about trivial things that should either wait until the next day or should go to someone else.

    You may be able to solve the problem by (1) having a dedicated emergency line mobile phone, only switched on between certain hours and which can therefore be passed over to someone else when the coordinator isn't available, and (2) applying a fee to hirers if they call the emergency line for something that isn't an emergency. If the problems come from within the church membership, then individuals can be spoken to on a case-by-case basis until it's understood that Christ's instruction was that we should "serve one another", not have one poor person running around serving everyone else.
Reply
  • At first glance, it would seem that the problem here is less likely to be the out-of-hours responding than it is the nature of what the coordinator is being called to respond to.

    If it was a burst pipe, I suspect he/she would be more than happy to rush to get things fixed and under control. The problem has only arisen because he/she is being called about trivial things that should either wait until the next day or should go to someone else.

    You may be able to solve the problem by (1) having a dedicated emergency line mobile phone, only switched on between certain hours and which can therefore be passed over to someone else when the coordinator isn't available, and (2) applying a fee to hirers if they call the emergency line for something that isn't an emergency. If the problems come from within the church membership, then individuals can be spoken to on a case-by-case basis until it's understood that Christ's instruction was that we should "serve one another", not have one poor person running around serving everyone else.
Children
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