Issue - meetings

That the Pay Policy Statement for 2014/2015 be approved noting that the Policy will need to be republished later in the year due to the developments summarised in paragraphs 3.0204 of the report.

The Chief Executive and Human Resources Manager introduced the report which sought approval of the Council’s Pay Policy Statement to be effective from 1 April 2014.

                        It was a statutory requirement for the Pay Policy Statement to be produced and published on an annual basis in advance of the beginning of each financial year.  It was intended that future Pay Policy Statements would be reported to County Council at the same time as consideration of the Budget.

                        The policy was a true and fair statement of current policy as approved by Council over previous years and the changes to the current policy were recommended for approval to meet the statutory deadline of being produced and published to meet the statutory deadline of 31 March 2014.

Subject to acceptance of the proposals in the Trade Union ballot, the achievement of a Single Status Agreement for Green Book employees would be effective from 1 June 2014.  This would result in a new pay and grading structure and new terms and conditions of employment.  There would be robust governance arrangements for maintaining the new pay and grading structure to ensure that there was no pay discrimination and that all pay differentials could be justified.  On implementation of Single Status, the Council’s Pay Policy for Green Book employees would change and the Pay Policy would need to be republished.  If the proposed management structure was approved later in the day, the Pay Policy would be adjusted to reflect the changes to Chief Officers and would be republished once the new structure was in place.

In addition, the Council was developing an Additional Payments Policy, to include Honoraria payments and Market Supplements, to ensure that the Council was able to offer competitive rates to attract and retain talented people where there may be limited availability of particular skills or expertise available in the market place.  This Policy would be introduced as part of the Single Status Agreement arrangements during 2014/15 and would be reflected in the updated Pay Policy Statement for 2014/15.

Councillor Billy Mullin, Cabinet Member for Corporate Management, proposed the acceptance of the recommendation within the report.  This was seconded by Councillor Bernie Attridge, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Environment.

Councillor Mike Peers made the following comments:

·        Page 5 of the Pay Policy Statement says the Council should set a benchmark example – he felt this should be clear that benchmarking comparisons could only be carried out against other Local Authorities

·        Page 9 of the Pay Policy Statement says apprentices are paid the current national minimum wage – he felt this should be reviewed and apprentices should not be on the minimum wage

The Chief Executive explained that the Government subsidy scheme was not at the minimum wage but whether the living wage could be paid to apprentices was under review.

RESOLVED:

That the Pay Policy Statement for 2014/2015 be approved noting that the Policy will need to be republished later in the year due to the developments summarised  ...  view the full minutes text for item 105