Agenda and minutes

To receive declarations of interest from Members in respect of items listed on the agenda.

There were no declarations of interest.

To consider whether the press and public should be excluded from the meeting during consideration of any part of the agenda.

The Chair advised that there were no items of business on the agenda that would require the exclusion of the press and public from the meeting.

Consideration was given to the report of the Assistant Chief Executive requesting that the Staffing Committee comment on the Council’s Pay Policy Statement for 2021-22 in advance of it being submitted to Council for approval.

It was noted that the Localism Act 2011, Chapter 8 Pay Accountability, made it a legal requirement for authorities to produce and publish a Pay Policy Statement by 31st March each year that this must be agreed by Council and detail the remuneration of its Chief Officers.

The Pay Policy Statement for 2021-22 was attached as an appendix to the officer’s report.

Resolved: -

That the Pay Policy Statement for 2021-22, as attached at Appendix 1 of the officer’s report be noted and recommended to Council for approval.

Consideration was given to the report of the Assistant Chief Executive that met the Council’s obligations under the Gender Pay Reporting Legislation that had been introduced in 2017 requiring employers with 250 or more employees to publish annually statutory calculations showing how large the pay gap was between their male and female employees. It was noted that a positive pay gap indicated that men were paid more than women and a negative pay gap indicated that women were paid more than men.

It was noted that the Council normally had up to 12 months following the annual snapshot date of 31stst March to publish this information on the Council and Government websites, with the usual deadline for public sector employers to report for the snapshot date of 31st March the previous year being 30th March of the current year, but that due to the demands of the pandemic the requirement to do so in 2021 had been waived by the Government. The Assistant Director, Human Resources and Organisational Development, advised that despite the waiver that it had been agreed to ensure transparency to publish the report as normal.

The full Gender Pay Gap report for 2019-20 was attached as an appendix to the officer’s report. The report stated that over recent years Council had seen significant reductions in its Gender Pay Gap, with the mean positive pay gap reducing from 13.4% to 9.1% over the last year, and from 21.8% in 2013. It was noted that while this reduction in the gap was welcome, whilst ever there was a gap work would continue to address the imbalance.

The report highlighted key issues from the report for the Committee’s consideration including:

·        The median gender pay gap for the Council at the end of March 2020 had increased slightly on the previous year, increasing from 10.6% to 11.2%. The mean pay gap had however decreased from 13.4% to 9.1%.

·        The Council’s pay gap showed that overall men were still paid more than women, however, the figures compared favourably with the average UK gap of 15.5%

·        In Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) employees the Council had a negative 14.9% median pay gap and negative 4.6% mean pay gap.   For disabled employees there was a negative 17.1% median and a negative 6.8% mean.  The negative pay gap indicated that both BAME and disabled employees were paid more than non-BAME/disabled employees.

It was noted that as no other Council in the region had published data for 2020, benchmarking was only available for 2019, with the benchmarking that had been carried out on the 2019 figures showing that the Council’s gender pay gap median figure comparing favourably with that of neighbouring authorities.

Members welcomed the report and the decision that had been taken to produce the report as normal, despite the requirement being waived by the Government to publish a report in 2020.

Members welcomed the positive progress that had been made in addressing the Gender Pay Gap over the last year and noted how important  ...  view the full minutes text for item 40.

To determine any item which the Chair is of the opinion should be considered as a matter of urgency.

The Chair reported that there were no urgent items of business requiring the Committee’s consideration.