Agenda item

Decision

RESOLVED TO RECOMMEND;

1. That the Council adopt the Pay Policy for 2018/19 as set out in appendix 1 of the report to the Cabinet.

2. That any amendments to the Pay Policy throughout the financial year 2018/2019 which are required as a result of legislative changes be approved by the Chief Executive in conjunction with the Council’s Monitoring Officer.

Reason for decision

To set the Council’s pay policy for the financial year 2018/19, as required by Section 38 of the Localism Act 2011.

Corporate objectives

The Council’s policies in respect of pay and terms and conditions support all five of the Council’s strategic objectives as part of ensuring that services to the community can be delivered to the required standards and with due regard to economy, efficiency and effectiveness.

Monitoring Officer/S.151 Officer comments

Monitoring Officer:  

The Pay Policy Statement meets the Council’s statutory requirements under Section 38 of the Localism Act 2011 and is therefore suitable for approval by Cabinet and Council.

S.151 Officer:

No further comments to add to the report.

Advice

Cllr Harden introduced the report as the annual policy that has to be brought to Members.  There are no major changes this year, though a few minor amendments were set out by M Rawdon.

M Rawdon advised that the changes from last year’s Senor Pay Policy are as follows;

• The Council’s lease car scheme is being replaced by a car salary sacrifice scheme which is now open to all employees, rather than selected few.
• The 3 essential car user allowances will be discontinued and the previous eligible staff will receive a consolidated increase in their pay equivalent to this amount.  The lease car allowances will be consolidated into basic pay for senior officers as of October 2020.
• The redundancy payments have been amended in relation to the changes, reducing from 2.2weeks to 1.5 weeks per year of service based on contractual weekly pay.
• We have also included the gender pay requirement, all employers with over 250 staff are required to publish this, and for clarity the gender pay gap is the percentage difference between average hourly earnings for men and woman.  The Council’s gender pay gap is detailed in the report, the mean gender pay gap between males & females was 1% and the medium was 8% in favour of women being paid more than males.  To conceptualise this, some companies are reporting women are earning 30-40% less than men.  Appendix 3 of the report to Cabinet provides some narrative on the gender pay gap.  Built around 4 key areas; strategy, recruitment & selection, terms & conditions and the support we provide.  A detailed action plan will form part of the people strategy going forward into next year to ensure we continue to support gender parity across all aspects of employment.

The Chair referred to the gender pay gap and asked, with regard Pg 30, Item 14, the figures in 14.1; the 1% pay gap between male and female.  It would appear in the first chart that males earn only marginally more than females, but in the second chart that switches round to females earning more and makes reference to 8%, but the difference between those two figures is probably more like 15%, so M Rawdon was asked to clarify those figures.

R Smyth clarified, that these are the ‘mean’ and ‘medium’ figures.

Agreed by Members and referred to Council for consideration.

Voting

None.