Agenda item

Report of the Director of HR and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

Lee Mann, Strategic Director of HR and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, introduced the report setting out the Council’s Pay Policy Statement for 2024/25.  He highlighted the following information:

a)  The Statement has been produced in accordance with the requirements of the Localism Act.  The Statement has to be approved by Full Council and published by 31 March.

b)  The data for the Statement is as at 31 October 2023, which was prior to the national pay award for 2023/24 for the Chief Executive and LGS colleagues.  Using pay data from 1 April to 31 October allows consistent comparability with previous years.

c)  The ratio between the Chief Executive’s basic pay and the Council’s non-Chief Officer mean average earner pay (excluding allowances) is 6.06:1, which is lower than the previous year’s ratio of 6.59:1.  The ratio between the Chief Executive’s basic pay and the Council’s non-Chief Officer median earner pay (excluding allowances) is 6.87:1 compared to 7.62:1 in 2023/24.

d)  The 2022/23 Gender Pay Gap report shows an average pay gap of minus 1.5%, which means that on average women earned more than men.

e)  The Ethnicity Pay Gap shows an average pay gap of 5.1%.

f)  The Disability Pay Gap shows on average pay gap of 0.0%.

During discussion the following points were made:

g)  While it is important not to be complacent, it is pleasing that the gender pay gap is a minus gap and demonstrates progress in paying staff in an equal way.  This needs to be similarly reflected in the ethnicity pay gap.

h)  In order to address the ethnicity pay gap, it would be useful to have a better understanding of how that is broken down between ethnicities and intersectionality.  The Service is already actively engaging with staff networks on improving analysis of data and a range of interventions are being pursued.  It is accepted that greater analysis and insight would be beneficial.

i)  It would be helpful to have a strategic plan, based on analysis and insight, for action to address the ethnicity pay gap.  This issue has been raised by the Corporate Scrutiny Committee and is of interest to other partners, such as staff networks.

j)  A Workforce Strategy was developed over summer 2023 but, while many of the actions remain valid, given the state of flux that the organisation is in it needs to be reviewed in light of changes, for example to the HR function arising from the Duties and Powers work.  Analysis of pay gaps will feed into both the Workforce Strategy and the Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy.

k)  It is anticipated that the workforce will change, including a reduction in its size, significantly over the next 12 months and depending on the demographics of the areas of the workforce affected this could impact on pay gaps.  Equality impact assessments are being carried out for all proposed changes.

l)  Performance related pay was introduced for SLMG employees in autumn 2023.  The next step is extending that to Strategic Directors, Corporate Directors and the Chief Executive.  Work is taking place to benchmark against other Core Cities, consider how it could be linked to pay range and make a robust assessment of the cost. 

m)  The Chief Executive’s pay is one of the lowest compared to other Core Cities. 

Resolved to:

(1)  note the Council’s Pay Policy Statement for 2024/25, which will be presented to Full Council on 4 March 2024; and

(2)  request that a report is presented to a future meeting of the Committee setting out the findings of analysis and insight into the Council’s ethnicity pay gap and, based on this analysis, proposing actions for reducing the gap over a 12 month period.