The Employment Sub-Committee of Barnet Council was scheduled to meet on Tuesday 23 January 2024 to discuss the council's Pay Policy Statement for the upcoming financial year. The meeting's agenda also included a review of previous meeting minutes and any urgent items the Chair deemed necessary to address.

Pay Policy Statement 2024/25

A significant item on the agenda was the consideration of the draft Pay Policy Statement for 2024/25. This statement is a requirement under the Localism Act 2011, which mandates local authorities to outline their policies on officer remuneration. The report, presented by Anisa Darr, Executive Director of Strategy and Resources, detailed the council's approach to the pay of its chief officers and lowest-paid employees, as well as the relationship between their remuneration.

The statement, as outlined in Appendix A of the report pack, covers various aspects of remuneration, including:

• The level and elements of remuneration for each Chief Officer.
• Remuneration of chief officers on recruitment, increases, and additions to remuneration.
• The use of performance-related pay and bonuses for chief officers.
• Policies on termination payments for chief officers.
• Transparency arrangements, including the publication of and access to information regarding chief officer remuneration.
• The rationale for the council's chosen approach to remuneration levels and how it is implemented.
• Differences in approach to groups of employees and the relevant rationale.
• Pay dispersion, incremental progression factors, and the use of honoraria and ex-gratia payments.
• The determination of remuneration parameters for officers returning to work for the local authority.

The report also included information on the council's pay structure, which uses a grading system evaluated by the Hay job evaluation scheme. Senior management posts are slotted into a grading system from Grade 1 to Grade 8, with the Chief Executive at the top of Grade 1, earning between £201,456 and £212,685. The rest of the council's workforce is covered by grades A to M, with the lowest point of the pay 'spine' at £25,854 for Grade A and the highest at £75,070 for Grade M.

The statement also addressed the gender pay gap, noting that as of 31 March 2022, the average hourly rate of pay for female employees was higher than that for male employees in terms of both mean (18.1%) and median (17.9%) averages. Work was also underway on reporting ethnicity pay gaps.

The report recommended that the Employment Sub-Committee consider the Pay Policy Statement and refer it to the Full Council meeting on 27 February 2024 for approval.

Minutes of the Previous Meeting

The committee was also scheduled to review the minutes of its previous meeting. The provided documentation included minutes from a meeting held on 26 September 2023, which detailed a discussion and unanimous approval of a proposal for the restructure of the Street Scene Management Team. This included the establishment of an Assistant Director, Street Scene Operations post and a Head of Parking & Parking Enforcement role, alongside the deletion of three existing posts.