Report by the Chief Executive (Head of Paid Service) attached.
Minutes:
49.1 Councillor Patrick introduced the report on behalf of the Chief Executive. Commenting further he went on to say that the report sets out the Pay Policy Statement for 2018/19 which under the Localism Act 2000 has to be reported to Council on an annual basis. The report sets out information about the remuneration of Chief Officer, the lowest paid employees, and the relationship between the two. The main change in the statement compared with 2017/18 was the removal of the role of Deputy Chief Executive from the structure with effect from 1 April 2018.
49.2 Councillor Patrick then MOVED the recommendations in the report.
49.3 Councillor Ward seconded the report and reserved the right to speak.
49.4 Councillor Arthey queried the gender pay gap and drew attention to the results for Babergh as female pay was nearly 23% lower than male pay and asked what the reasons were behind this?
49.5. In response the Chief Executive advised that Government had introduced the requirement for Councils to have openness and transparency in relation to any gender pay gap and that is why the information had been included within the covering report even though it did not form part of the pay policy itself. On that specific point the Council was obliged to report for Babergh and separately for Mid Suffolk. As Council was aware, doing so was a nonsense because the basis on which each individual member of staff happened to be employed differed, he happened to be a Babergh employee, colleagues may happen to be Mid Suffolk employees but everybody works for both so you could only really get a true picture of the gap by looking at the two combined Councils because looking at the two separately tells you nothing but the Council was obliged to report it in that way and that’s why the figures that Council were looking at, specifically for Babergh really are meaningless. To comply with the regulations a snap shop was taken in March 2017, now that it is beyond 31st March 2018 this can now be recalculated to give the Council an updated position.
49.6 Councillor Bavington requested that going forward the actual figures were included in the report and whether the gender pay gap was closing over time.
49.7 Councillor Melanie Barrett asked following the recent redundancy of the Deputy Chief Executive if, in future, recruitment was made to that that post would approval need to be sought from full Council?
49.8 In response the Chief Executive informed Council that if he were to bring forward any significant change to the structure of the Senior Leadership Team, creating a new Deputy Chief Executive post would be a significant change, that would come forward to full Council and in addition to that all Senior Leadership Team appointments are made by Councillors so Councillors would both be involved from a full Council perspective in agreeing the structure but then more specifically in any appointment. He also gave his assurance that he had no intention to do so.
49.9 Councillor Melanie Barrett also queried whether it would be possible to seek a settlement agreement with an employee and if there was a policy that prevented a settlement being offered to someone with less than 2 years’ service who couldn’t claim unfair dismissal in any case.
49.10 The Chief Executive replied that if they had not got continuity of service, so if they’ve not got any acquired rights by virtue for example of having worked elsewhere within local government, and it was simply their first job with the Council within a 2 year period and then they disappeared the Council wouldn’t be looking to any settlement agreement.
It was Resolved:-
That the proposed Pay Policy Statement for 2018/19 attached as Appendix A to the report be approved.
Supporting documents: