Council Invests in New Pay and Grading Structure
The Highland Council is to invest £7.5 million in this financial year to introduce a new pay and grading structure for its non-teaching staff.
The structure, as well as a harmonised terms and conditions proposal, has now been agreed, which will allow the Council to write to staff with detailed information on job evaluation outcomes.
Letters will be posted to all 10,000 employees who are affected by job evaluation during the week commencing Monday 8 December, to inform them of individual outcomes and new grades and pay, which are effective from 1 April 2008.
The new pay grades will be implemented from February 2009. Any employee entitled to back pay will receive this by May 2009.
From Monday 8 December, letters will also be sent to the estimated 2,500 predominantly female manual workers who are covered by the Council’s equal pay framework. These letters will advise employees of the monies due to them under the equal pay framework between I October 2006 and the effective date of the new pay structure i.e. 1 April 2008.
Equal pay signing sessions have been scheduled to take place at venues throughout the Council area. The Council is committed to making payments as quickly as possible after employees have signed their compromise agreement at their signing session.
The final conditions of service proposal has also been agreed by the Council and this has been offered formally to the trade unions in order that they can consult with their members.
Councillor Carolyn Wilson, Chairman of the Council’s Resources Committee, has welcomed the Council’s significant commitment to its workforce.
She said the introduction of a new pay and grading structure and a package of harmonised terms and conditions of service will benefit the Council in a number of ways including:
• Improved flexibility and productivity;
• Equal pay liabilities will be addressed;
• Reduced grievances concerning conditions of service;
• Improved service delivery through a modernised workforce with harmonised conditions of service.
She said: “I fully appreciate that staff are eagerly awaiting the outcome of this major exercise. We have recently agreed the final pay and grading structure as well as the harmonised terms and conditions proposal and are now in a position to tell everyone of the outcome. Individual letters will go out as early as possible in December.”
Background
As part of the National Agreement on Pay and Conditions of Service for Local Government Employees, the Council is required to introduce a new fair and non-discriminatory pay and grading structure to integrate former APT&C staff and former manual workers. The Job Evaluation Scheme, which was developed nationally, has been used for this purpose.
The Council also inherited a variety of different terms and conditions of service from the former Highland Regional Council and the former eight District Councils and a harmonised package of terms and conditions of service is proposed to address the current variations between services and areas.