The Employment and Labour Relations Court has decisively blocked attempts by the Council of Governors and the Public Service Commission to withdraw career progression guidelines for clinical officers and other health workers.
Justice Byram Ongaya,who delivered the judgment on Wednesday, 17th December 2025, found the move to remove the guidelines was unlawful, upholding a case brought by the Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO).
The dispute centred on career guidelines approved by the Public Service Commission in May 2024, which established a standardised grading structure, promotion pathways, and job descriptions for clinical officers across the national and county governments.
The conflict erupted in September 2025 when the Council of Governors, following an extraordinary meeting, wrote to the PSC demanding an immediate withdrawal of all such guidelines for health cadres.
The CoG argued the PSC had developed them “without consultation or involvement of County Governments who are the employers of the majority of the health workers.” The letter, signed by CoG Chair Ahmed Abdullahi, starkly warned, “The guidelines, if implemented, would have huge financial implications on County Governments whose budgets have not been increased.”
KUCO, represented by AKO Advocates, argued the withdrawal was malicious, threatened industrial peace, and reversed hard-won gains. In a fiery letter to the CoG on 4th September 2025, the union’s General Secretary George M. Gibore demanded an immediate retraction, stating, “We hereby DEMAND THAT you immediately withdraw this letter and proceed to disseminate the Guidelines to your constituent County Governments for subsequent implementation. By way of this letter, we advise the PSC to ignore your resolutions.” The union contended the guidelines were developed consultatively and were already being implemented in some counties, forming part of existing return-to-work agreements.
County governments, including Busia and Makueni, resisted the union’s case. They argued the PSC had no constitutional authority over county employees and that imposing uniform guidelines violated their autonomy. The Council of Governors’ lawyer, Mr. Kataka maintained that Article 234(3) of the Constitution explicitly prevents the PSC’s powers from spreading to county governments.
The PSC’s own lawyer, Mr. Ondukenya, appeared to support this view during proceedings, conceding that the commission’s letter approving the guidelines in May 2024 had been copied to the CoG “in error.”
Justice Ongaya’s judgment, however, navigated this constitutional tightrope with a crucial distinction. The court found the career guidelines were fundamentally a “policy document” emanating from the Ministry of Health,a national government function,and not a direct imposition of the PSC’s human resource control over counties.
The judge emphasised that the PSC’s approval did not make implementation mandatory for counties; it was an option for each County Public Service Board to adopt. “It is not therefore true that in approving the career guidelines the Commission was applying its powers and functions over counties,” the judgment stated.
Crucially, the court ruled that withdrawing the guidelines would violate the rights of officers already benefiting from them, asserting, “It would amount to unfair labour practices to arbitrarily vary accrued employee rights.”
