Following the June 2010 Pay Review for managers and the announcement of the CWU agreement on team members pay in July 2010, we wrote to the company to outline our concerns on outstanding issues with the RF and requesting that we discuss a longer term pay deal for people in the RF. Some of the issues we raised with the Company include the squeezing of pay differentials, the lack of range movement in the RF ranges and the level of increases for managers high in range.

Since September the pay negotiating team have been involved in continuing talks over a potential agreement on pay and the RF with BT. These talks have been pretty constructive - and we hope to issue further positive news in the next week or two about their progress.

We are seeking to make a longer-term agreement, of similar duration to the agreement between BT and the CWU. Our aim is to provide as much clarity as we can to members over the level of increase they can expect to receive. The issues we are particularly concentrating on in the discussions with BT are: differentials, particularly at the interface between band one managers and the team members they manage; the position of those high in range; the ranges themselves, where we are seeking to get many increased; and starting pay on appointment to a new role and equal pay.

We hope the agreement will make real progress on the union's agenda for 2011 and 2012 and look forward to communicating out the final details and ballot arrangements in due course.