Agenda item

This report updates Members on the progress of the pay negotiations for the financial year 2024/2025.

Discussion:

Members considered a report on the progress of the pay negotiations for the financial year 2024/2025, including the Council’s pay offer for 2024/25 for consideration.

The Chief Organisational Culture Officer outlined the pay proposals set out in the report’s recommendations, including reference to Unison’s pay claim and the Council’s financial challenges. Reference was made to the pay award for the previous year which was a flat £1,000 increase for all plus the introduction of a £500 gap between ranges 2, 3 and 4. She also referred to the proposal to provide an additional day’s leave after 10 years’ and 15 years’ long service, as specified in paragraph 8.9 of the report.

Members then raised a number of questions and comments, some of which referred to matters discussed at the Joint Consultative Committee held immediately before this meeting, which included:

The Council’s finances – it was commented that £10m was a significant sum to be set aside for pay rises if the Council was in financial difficulty and it appeared that savings were having to be made elsewhere within the budget to help pay for this increase.

Proposed pay award – it was commented that pay rises had been underfunded for many years and it was important to redress to help ensure that the Council could be an employer of choice. It was suggested that the proposed pay award of 5% was fair when compared to increases in the private sector and charity sector.

Staffing numbers and breakdown of sums allocated for pay – in response to a question seeking clarification on the number of employees who worked for the Council, the Chief Organisational Culture Officer confirmed that there were 1560 casual posts, 1761 full time posts, 558 part time posts and 118 agency staff, this meant that the full establishment was 3997, but not all of those staff would be on MedPay terms and conditions, e.g. a small number of staff would be on NHS or Soulbury conditions.

The Chief Organisational Culture Officer explained that the £10M consisted of approximately £602,000 to meet the national minimum wage increases, the cost of the 5% uplift in salaries was projected to be £3.7M, although this did not account for vacant posts. £370,000 was required to introduce career progression at the bottom of the pay ranges and the remainder of the £10M would be used towards the MedPay review. This review would assist in improving employee turnover rates and help address market drift as a consequence of the recent pay awards.

The Chief Finance Officer advised the Committee that the £10m should be considered in the context of a £400M net revenue budget and a £100m salary budget. The proposed 5% pay award was not considered out of kilter with the rest of the public sector and that correcting pay made financial sense for the organisation given that the Council’s turnover and vacancy rates were high compared to other local authorities. Therefore, the draft budget proposed a meaningful pay award and continuing with the MedPay review including career progression would seek to address this.

Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) – comments from the JCC meeting held immediately before this meeting, which was attended by Unison representatives, included that those representatives felt that it was a decent pay award given inflation and the Council’s budget position. Unison representatives were also asking the Council to look at returning to national terms and conditions and a 35 hour week going forwards.

Decision:

The Committee recommended to full Council:

a)             a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) of 5% is allocated for the 2024/25 pay award for all on MedPay Terms and conditions.

b)             the Range 3 pay band is lifted by £1,052 (excluding the 5% COLA increase).

c)             the Range 2 pay band is lifted by £547 (excluding the 5% COLA increase).

d)             a gap of £525 is introduced between the Range 1 and 2 pay bands.

e)             sleep in payments are increased by 3.88%.

f)              the Annual Leave entitlement is increased to 30 days per annum pro rota for R1-R3, after 5 years’ continuous service.

g)             the current PDR levels and the associated performance related award attributed to them (i.e. levels 1A and 1B) be removed and instead an additional day’s Annual leave awarded to everyone in 2024/25 and 2025/26 on MedPay terms and conditions who is not subject to formal performance management measures.

h)             to introduce a long service award of an additional day’s leave at 10 and 15 years of service at all grades.