To present the Council’s draft Pay Policy Statement for 2024/25 for recommendation onto Full Council for approval and adoption.

The Committee heard that The Localism Act 2011, Chapter 8 (Pay Accountability) Section 38 (1), required the Council to prepare a Pay Policy Statement each year. The Pay Policy Statement articulated the Council’s approach to a range of issues relating to the pay of its workforce.

Members were told that the Human Resources & Council Tax Committee had historically overseen the preparation of a draft Pay Policy Statement for recommendation onto Full Council for approval and adoption for the subsequent financial year to ensure that remuneration was set within the wider pay context, and gave due consideration to the relationship between the highest and lowest paid in the organisation.

Officers informed the Committee that further matters that must be included in the statutory Pay Policy Statement were as follows:-

-       A local authority’s policy on the level and elements of remuneration for each Chief Officer.

-       A local authority's policy on the remuneration of its lowest-paid employees (together with its definition of “lowest-paid employees” and its reasons for adopting that definition).

-       A local authority’s policy on the relationship between the remuneration of its Chief Officers and other Officers.

-       A local authority's policy on other aspects of Chief Officers’ remuneration: remuneration on recruitment increases and additions to remuneration, use of performance related pay and bonuses, termination payments and transparency.

The Committee was reassured that the draft Pay Policy Statement for 2024/25 had been designed to give an overview of the Council’s framework regarding pay and rewards for staff within the Council. That framework was based on the principle of fairness and that rewards should be proportional to the weight of each role and each individual’s performance. The framework also aimed to ensure the ability of the Council to recruit talented individuals whilst ensuring value for money for the residents of Tendring.

Members noted that the Conditions of Employment with Tendring District Council, including pay, in the main, conformed to those established for local government generally by the National Joint Committee (NJC). Agreements reached by the NJC were ‘collective agreements’.

The Committee was also told that there was limited change reported in the 2024/25 Statement with the exception of the application of the 2023/24 pay award (following agreement between National Employers and National Unions), whereby there were further significant changes at the lower and mid-end of the pay spine, as follows:-

-       With effect from 1 April 2023, an increase of £1,925 (pro rata for part-time employees) to be paid as a consolidated, permanent addition on all NJC pay points SCP 2 to 43 inclusive.

-       With effect from 1 April 2023, an increase of 3.88 per cent on all pay points above the maximum of the pay spine (SCP 43) but graded below deputy chief officer (in accordance with Green Book Part 2 Para 5.42).

-       With effect from 1 April 2023, an increase of 3.88 per cent on all allowances.

Officers also informed Members that the latest pay award meant an employee on the bottom pay point in April 2021 (earning £18,333) would have received an increase in their pay of £4,033 (22.0 percent) over the two years to April 2023.

The Committee was made aware that for an employee at the mid-point of the pay spine (pay point 22), their pay would have increased over the same period by £3,850 (13.99 percent).

Further, the draft Pay Policy Statement 2024/25 included reference to a number of updates to the Council’s Allowances Policy, namely the extension of Emergency Planning payments, which now extended beyond First Call Officers to all staff supporting the Authority’s response in those circumstances and the allowance paid to those Officers who attended Committee meetings, including the parameters in which payments were applied.

Officers reminded the Committee that the draft Pay Policy Statement 2024/25 included reference to updated statutory guidance with regard to Special Severance Payments.

The Human Resources and Council Tax Committee had previously requested that Senior HR Officers engaged the services of the East of England Local Government Association (EELGA) to expand on the earlier Pay Review undertaken to carry out a comprehensive, service wide review of TDC’s pay structure as follows:-

-       Across the whole staffing establishment (including Chief Officers), in the context of neighbouring (District) authorities and regionally.

-       In the context of professional and technical areas – this would be an extension of the work already undertaken by EELGA and would also consider those areas in which Market Forces Supplements were currently applied.

The Committee was notified that the work was underway, and once concluded, the findings and the associated recommendations for action (if applicable) would be presented to a future meeting of the Human Resources and Council Tax Committee.

Members also noted that work was underway to update the Council’s Career Grade Scheme and Acting Up Policy in line with the Assistant Director (Partnerships) delegations, ‘to make minor amendments to Human Resources Policies and Procedures necessary as a result of legislation, national guidance or best practice’. Those policies supplemented the draft Pay Policy Statement; however, they were not the subject of this Officer report.

Finally, as soon as was reasonably practicable after the Pay Policy Statement was approved by Council, this Authority must publish the Statement in such manner as it thought fit (which must include publication on the authority’s website). Therefore, the Statement would be published on the Council’s website following approval by Full Council in March 2024.

It was moved by Councillor Guglielmi, seconded by Councillor G Stephenson and unanimously:-

RESOLVED that the draft Pay Policy Statement 2024/25, as set out in Appendix A of the Officer report, be endorsed and be recommended onto Full Council for its approval and adoption.