Agenda item

To consider a report by the H.R. Services Manager (copy attached) to seek:-

 

(a)  Council’s approval to the changes to the Pay Policy for 2016/17

(b)  Agreement to the recommendations of the Remuneration Panel on Senior Leadership pay.

 

Councillor Julian Thompson-Hill introduced the Annual Pay Policy Review (previously circulated). 

 

Pay Policy

 

The Pay Policy had been reviewed for 2016/17 and the following amendments were shown highlighted within the Policy:

 

(i)              National Pay Awards

(ii)             Chief Officer Pay Award

(iii)            Payments on Termination, and

(iv)           Recovery of Exit Payments following Re-employment.

 

SLT Payment

 

A politically balanced Remuneration Panel for Senior Leadership Pay had been set up to make the following recommendations to Full Council:

 

(i)              Recommendations on senior pay and reward issues to Council, ensuring consistency, transparency and accessibility

(ii)             Recommendations on the management of and structure of senior pay and reward, and grounds for pay progression

(iii)            Determine the level of pay and any award of Performance Related Pay for the Chief Executive.

 

The last pay review of senior officer pay had been undertaken in March 2001 as part of the re-structuring of the senior officers within the Council.  As at 2008/09 there were 25 senior officers within the structure. 

 

Since then there had been a number of changes in the SLT structure with a much leaner senior leadership structure.  The SLT structure as at 1 April 2016 had 12 senior officers.

 

The Council had experienced retention issues at this level with two key Heads of Service leaving the authority in the past 12 months.

 

There was a requirement to have independent advice on job evaluation for senior officers and it had been agreed by the Remuneration Panel that the Council commissioned the Hay Group to independently size, through job evaluation, senior officers roles based on a generic job description and a role profile which gave the specifics of the role.

 

For the Council, the SLT pay structure needed to:

 

·       Be sufficient to attract, retain and motivate senior managers of the quality required to run the organisation successfully

·       To provide a fair, consistent and transparent form of remuneration for Chief Officers.

 

Part of the process required the proposals to be considered by the Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales (IRP) which had been established by the Welsh Government under the Local Authorities (Allowances for Members)(Wales) Regulations 2007 which was subsequently revoked by the Local Government Wales measure 2011 (the Measure).  Later legislation included the Local Government (Democracy)(Wales) Act 2013 which made changes to the Measure to give the IRP powers to become involved in the salaries of the Heads of Paid Service.

 

In relation to Denbighshire, the IRP decision was to recommend a variation to the Council’s proposal.

 

The Remuneration Panel for Denbighshire met to consider the recommendations made by the IRP.

 

Base on all the information, the Remuneration Panel unanimously determined, having given due consideration to the recommendations made by the IRP, to continue with their original proposals.

 

Councillor Julian Thompson-Hill proposed, seconded by Councillor Stuart Davies that Full Council agree to the recommendations within the Annual Pay Policy Review.

 

RESOLVED that:

 

(i)              Full Council agree the changes to the Pay Policy for 2016/17

(ii)             Full Council agree the recommendations of the Remuneration Panel on Senior Leadership Pay namely:

a.     The Council agrees the rank order of the Senior Leadership Team

b.     The Council adopts a new Pay Structure with incremental grades for the Senior Leadership Team.