This meeting of the Personnel Committee includes a report on the difference in pay between men and women working for the council, and a draft of the Council's pay policies for the 2025/26 financial year.

Gender Pay Gap

The report pack includes a report on the council's gender pay gap on the 31st March 2024.

It says that:

The average hourly rate of female employees’ is 13.20% lower than male employees.

The report says that, at a national level, the gender pay gap in 2023 was 14.3%, and that:

The data analysed indicates that the gender pay gap does not stem from paying men and women differently for the same or equivalent work.

It also says that:

The gender pay gap appears to relate to factors such as the occupation that men and women choose to undertake within the organisation, salaries that these roles attract and the proportion of men and women working part time or full time.

The report proposes an action plan to address the gender pay gap, including actions to encourage women to apply for jobs at the council, to encourage and enable women to progress within the organisation, and to monitor and promote the uptake of flexible working by men and women.

Pay Policy Statement

The report pack contains a draft of the council's Pay Policy Statement 2025/26.

The document sets out the council's proposed policies in relation to a number of areas of pay and remuneration, including overtime, bonus payments, and severance pay.

The statement says that:

The Council does not pay any group of employees a bonus.

It says that the council's pay multiple, the ratio between the highest and median salary it pays, is 5.6.

The statement also lays out how the council will calculate redundancy payments, which it bases on:

the employee’s age, length of continuous local government service and salary.

The statement says that these payments are made according to a formula that:

mirrors the statutory table but provides a multiplier of 2

The document also includes details of the council's proposed policies towards discretionary payments related to the Local Government Pension Scheme, or LGPS¹.