When the age bracket reached 30 years or under only one person was still standing in the conference, held in Nottingham in June.

A motion from the Intellectual Property Office outlined Prospect’s work in launching a youth committee and formulating a strategy for the young professionals’ network.

It instructed the sector executive to:

• work with the YPN committee to promote the benefits of forming a network
• support and encourage branches to create a YPN
• liaise with organisers and other full-time officers to identify any capacity and capability gaps in civil service branches that may hinder the formation of YPNs.

Lucy Hibbitt (sector executive) told delegates that succession planning was their responsibility. She urged them to think about what they could do to support young members. “You are this union, you need to take responsibility for its future.”

Delegates agreed and endorsed the motion

Prospect structure

Delegates remitted a motion calling on the executive to review its areas of responsibility; demarcation lines with the national executive committee; and how it works with full-time officers and staff.

Prospect’s current structure has a myriad of different roles and bodies with interlocking duties, which can lead to piecemeal and erratic interaction, Robert Black (Intellectual Property Office) told delegates.

Deputy general secretary Leslie Manasseh said he understood the frustration expressed in the motion and the need to maximise the union’s campaigning strength.

But carrying out a review would add to an already long to-do list. He said the executive would take account of the motion but not be bound by the exact wording. Delegates agreed and remitted the motion.

Equality audit

Conference remitted a motion instructing the executive to carry out an equality audit of civil service branch committees to help identify and address any under-representation.

Russell Brown, on behalf the executive, said the issues raised were important but the instruction was a problem given existing priorities, resources and workloads.

He said that because branches themselves elect equality reps, they were best placed to identify under-representation.

• You can see more conference reports in the ‘news’ section on the left of the civil service industry pages  and in PublicEye magazine, being distributed to members this week.