Agenda item

4.1  Stuart Thorn, Head of Human Resources introduced the report outlining

the draft 2023/24 Pay Policy Statement detailing the current pay practice

and reported that there had been no substantive changes to this policy

and no new policy principles. The report outlined the ratio of the pay of top tier officers from chief officer grades CO1-3 including the Chief Executive to that of the median and lowest-paid earner from spinal column point (SCP)3 and above. The ratio was currently 5.48, slightly higher from the previous year and based on two job evaluation schemes. The returning officer duties pay had been excluded from the Chief Executive’s total earnings due to no elections being held in 2021/2022, and TUPE staff had been excluded from the ratio as they did not fall within the Council's normal terms and conditions and salary scales. The 2022/23 Budget Report factored into the budget an assumption of a two per cent pay increase.

4.2   The Head of Human Resources responded to questions from Members as follows:

·  The pay award for local government workers was determined

nationally by the National Joint Council (NJC) for Local Government Services and the Council was bound by its decision. For the first time, the national employer had awarded a flat rate of 1925 with adjustments for London weighting and advised that next year’s pay award would remain a flat rate. This year the pay award had varied from 9.9 at the lowest spinal column point and 1.6% at the highest point;

·  The lowest-paid earnings started from SCP3 or scale 2, which

excluded contractors transferred under TUPE such as parking

contractors brought in-house in April 2022 as they had not been

included on the evaluated scales. Those TUPE staff would be included in the ratio for the 2024/5 statement. To prevent the erosion of scales 2 and 3 by 2026, the national employer had based the pay award on a fixed amount instead of a percentage;

·  With regard to having a ratio for assessing the equivalent of the LLW wage annual salary, as part of the council’s corporate agency contract agency staff were paid the rate that was equivalent to the job paid at the Council. Suppliers were not considered employees of the council;

·  As part of the Library restructure it had been agreed that library staff could remain on a casual rota basis without affecting redundancy payments. Staff taking redundancy could not return to local authority for a period of 31 days and in the case of voluntary redundancy it would for a period of 12 months;

·  The Head of Human Resources undertook to provide in future reports the figures over a period of years in relation to the ratio of Chief Executive and lowest and mean pay to enable members to identify any trends in pay gaps;

·  The Head of Human Resources undertook to add Chief Executive pay with comparable London boroughs in future reports and indicated that following the resignation of the former Chief Executive, Tim Shields, he had worked with the Mayor on a project looking at comparable London boroughs and Chief Executives rates of pay. The findings showed that Hackney Council’s rate of pay was in the middle with comparable boroughs and he undertook to check if this work could be shared with Members.

ACTION: The Head of Human Resources ascertain if the work undertaken

on the Chief Executive rate of pay comparable to London boroughs could

be circulated to members.

4.3   Concern was expressed that the Council could lag behind in public sector pay growth following the issuing of the Office of National Statistics guide from June to August, which reported that the average pay growth for the private sector was 6.2% compared to 2% in the public sector. The widening pay growth issue had been the result of national government funding.

RESOLVED:

To agree the Pay Policy and recommend Council to approve it.