To recommend the pay policy statement 2023-2024 to Full Council for approval and publication.

Members of the panel considered a report by the HR Improvement manager seeking recommendation of the pay policy statement 2023-2024 to Full Council. In presenting the report the HR Improvement manger highlighted that the statement was an annual requirement and that it was usually a statement of policies already in place.

The changes from the previous years’ statement were noted, including:

·       The scope of chief officers to be reported had been reviewed and updated in line with the definitions;

·       The approach to managing different national pay awards by different negotiating bodies, where the chief executive reserves the right to apply the greater award to all staff where there is a sensible case to do so;

·       Inclusion of a graphic showing the distribution of staff across the pay grades;

·       Inclusion of gender pay gap data as requested by the panel in previous years;

·       Update of the salary ratio showing a reduction from the previous year.

Members of the panel debated the report and as a result of queries raised it was agreed that the following changes would be made to the statement before its presentation to Council:

·       A link to be added to the structure chart of the council as published on the website;

·       Data used in the graphic of staff distribution across the pay grades to be checked for accuracy and some additional explanatory text added, particularly where figures do not match to the table of chief officer posts;

·       Vacant chief officer and deputy chief officer posts to be included in the table;

·       A definition of ‘spot salary’ to be included and clarification that corporate directors are also on spot salaries but service directors are not;

·       Data on pay ratios in other councils listed for comparison to be double checked as some significant changes are noted;

·       Only other councils to be listed in the table at paragraph 6.4 as the best comparators;

·       Clarification to be added that Herefordshire Council does not use scale 1 of the pay scale, and that it has been recommended to the chief executive that the council move to paying a Real Living Wage.

It was proposed that the panel receive a report on the latest staff survey at a future meeting. It was also noted that the director of HR and OD was considering creation of a gender pay gap action plan for the council and would bring a report on this to the panel.

It was unanimously resolved that:

Subject to the agreed amendments, the pay policy statement in Appendix A is recommended to Full Council.