£2 million council row in East Riding
It's over an external company being used to evaluate jobs and pay.
East Riding Council staff are worried and angry about a company being hired to evaluate jobs and pay, amid local levy hikes and price rises, a union representative has said.
Sarah Keig, a regional organiser with Unison which represents East Riding Council workers, said members there feared the Total Pay and Reward review could threaten existing pay and conditions.
The union official also claimed there was a lack of transparency around spending £2.25m on the review, rather than doing it in-house and it was not fit for purpose.
A council spokesperson said they had investigated the scheme set to be used and found it was robust, having been used by other local authorities.
The spokesperson added councillors had opted to bring in a private company rather than working internally and the review would help keep staff and offer workers good career paths.
It comes as the council’s cabinet approved hiring Korn Ferry Hay to do the evaluation, which is set to take around two years.
Cabinet members previously heard the review was needed, to bring salaries in line with market rates and fill specialist roles left vacant for months.
Council leader, Cllr Jonathan Owen, told the last full East Riding meeting staff deserved to have their work properly recognised and rewarded which is way the review is taking place.
But Ms Keig told LDRS spending £2.25m was a disgrace amid an incoming council tax hike of 3.99 per cent as the cost of living continues to climb.
She added Unison members would demonstrate outside Beverley’s County Hall during the council’s full meeting today (Wednesday, February 23) to call for a change in course.
The union official said:
“Unison has always welcomed a review, for far too long our members at the council have been paid below the average for public sector.
“We’re more than happy for the review to go ahead, but we feel there’s no need to spend £2.25m of tax payers’ money on getting a private company to do it.
“The trouble is that in these situation we know there are always going to be losers, even if there’s some winners.
“These workers have just come out of a pandemic, they’ve worked incredibly hard for two years through stressful situations and now they’re going to have to go through this.
“The uncertainty and the anger it’s creating is upsetting a lot of people, they think we’ve worked so hard all the way through coronavirus and this is the thanks we get?
“But now this external company’s coming in and they’re going to look at these roles on paper, rather than taking into account extra work they’ve taken on in the last 10 years since austerity was introduced.
“And with the scheme itself, there’s two used by the vast majority of councils in the UK, they’re recognised schemes created in partnership with councils and the trade unions.
“The scheme East Riding Council is going to use was created in the US in the 1950s, and you can imagine what America was like then.
“It’s designed to evaluate professional and senior management roles in private companies.
“I think the council sees it as an easy option, they also say they want it to be completely unbiased, which is why they’re bringing in an external company.
“But our response to that is that they’ve done these valuations in-house before, so does that mean those evaluations were biased?
“The cabinet voted on spending the £2.25m in private, some of this seems to be done behind closed doors so it makes you wonder what they have to hide.
“I’ve been involved with these sorts of reviews before, they’re usually much more open and transparent.
“As things stand, we’re going to ballot our members at the end of it because it involves changing their terms and conditions.
“We hope we’ll be in a position to recommend they vote for the end result, but if the council digs their heels in we would be prepared to ballot our members on industrial action.”
The council’s spokesperson said the £2.25m cost of the review needed to be seen in the context of an overall yearly salary bill of £328m, including for school staff.
They added more spending would be needed even if the review was done in house because extra staff would have to be brought in.
The spokesperson said:
“The council absolutely recognises and values its workforce and needs to undertake a fundamental review to ensure that both its organisational and pay structure are fit for purpose as we move forward with more modern ways of working.
“This will ensure that we can undertake the work in a timely manner minimising any uncertainty for our staff.
“£0.25m of the costs relate to internal costs which are not paid to the external partner.
“This is a one-time cost, whereas council tax funds our annual running costs.
“Reducing council tax would affect our funding every single year in the future, a £2.25m reduction to council tax would reduce funding for council services by £11.25m over the next five years.
“That is simply unaffordable, given the increasing costs we will face in future years.”