Indoor Duty Cover Recruitment Question

[Mezza]

The bloke that used to cover the rest days of our 3 indoor duties recently left.

The duties covered are the DOM Support, Callers Office and also the RLE/ Callers Office assist.

I am aware that these duties are classed as specialised duties with a specific recruitment policy.

My question is should the cover duty also be classed as a specialised duty with regard to filling the position ?
Obviously it is only a 3 day a week cover the other 2 days were covering driving duties or as required.

My reason for asking is that with no cover duty the DOM Support and RLE/ callers assist are now not covered. The RLE is only covered in so much as somebody receives and allocates the specials and that is it. There is no cover for the DOM Support whatsoever and the Callers is covered by someone who often does O/T in the callers - but he is sent out on delivery as soon as the callers shuts at 12 and so is booking nothing in.

Not having any cover is getting frustrating for the regular duty holders as they come back after their day off to 2 days work.
Whilst we could put in a grievance i would like to know in advance if this could just be shrugged off with the usual 'operational needs' excuse.

We have recruited to fill the position of the person who has left but the new starter is on deliveries and it's looking likely that management are using the cover duties hours on delivery rather than providing the cover indoors.
Can and should they be doing this?

There is little point in asking our Union rep as he is too busy grabbing his ghosting. I doubt if it's even been mentioned at any resource meeting.