Agenda item

Purpose: To seek comments from the Personnel Committee prior to seeking Council’s approval of the Statutory Pay Policy Statement for publication from 1^st April 2021.

The Committee considered a report, Agenda Item 4, Statutory Pay Policy 2021 (C3984).

Rebecca Bird presented the report and the purpose of the report was to see comments from the committee prior to seeking Council’s approval of the Statutory Pay Policy Statement for publication from 1st April 2021. The report has been published on the internet since March 2012 when it was approved for annual publication in principal by the Council. The figures seen in blue are different from last year. Exit Pay Cap paragraph 3.1.3 was legislation from 2020.

Councillor Jo Stewart asked how the paper could go through full council without the figures confirmed. Rebecca Bird said that figures shown in blue font reflected the current figures. She reassured the committee that in terms of minimum wage, staff were being paid fairly but that that the payments for apprenticeships were a grey area. Rebecca Bird also wanted it to be noted that jobs were evaluated based on fields within specific grades based on reviews of executive people and resources and that differences were often seen because of executive roles.

Councillor Stewart asked for further clarification and Councillor Adrian Abbs added that when statutory pay was examined, a benefits package should have been included to enable public understanding of the cost and that this would have provided a further incentive for people to have applied for the jobs. Rebecca Bird noted that there was, currently, no document for applicants to look at and if it was available job candidates wouldn’t likely read it because it was quite complex. She further stated that instead of a report, a couple of examples could be presented as a way forward. Councillor Stewart agreed.

Councillor Jeff Brooks said he wanted to look at it from a best practice perspective and that the criteria needed to be clear. Rebecca Bird stated that she needed to get further advice from a monitoring officer and it would also be brought to the attention of the Head of Service. Councillor Stewart added that it was important to have a clear criteria and said there needed to be checks and balances in place, especially when you were rewarding one employee but not another. 

Councillor Brooks commented in regards to 3.1.7, Additional Special Recruitment Payment (SRP), and queried how often this had been deployed and if it had been designed for difficulty at lead service as it was likely there would have been one or two in play to have dealt with market pressures. He questioned further whether there was a demand for IT and whether we needed to review that in the Council Work Plan. Rebecca Bird added that there was some work there to do.

Councillor Abbs reiterated there was a need for accountability on salaries and he wanted to learn more about application and skills and how they were relevant to pay scales. Councillor Garth Simpson added that all this information could be looked at by the Committee in more detail at the next meeting.  Councillor Stewart wanted more clarification on 3.1.8 so that more explanation could be given on difference between specific pay grades.