Civil staff pay and grading review

Report: 8
Date: 7 March 2002
By: Commissioner

Summary

Following discussion at the last HR Committee this report seeks to update Members in respect of the civil staff pay and grading review.

A. Recommendation

That Members note the current position.

B. Supporting information

Background

1. Members will be aware that, following the approval of an additional £22.2 million for improvements to civil staff pay for 2001/02, Hay Management Consultants Ltd were commissioned by the MPS to undertake a review of the current pay and grading structure. The main recommendations made by Hay were set out in report 4 considered by the Committee on 19 April 2001.

2. At that meeting, the Committee also approved changes to location allowance boundaries and rates. These changes provided improvements to location allowance and all staff benefited from an increase of at least £448 pa. Depending on location and the changed boundaries, some staff gained £772 pa and a few even more. Those changes constituted the first element of improvements to civil staff pay. The second element was the 3.5% across the board pay award with effect from 1 August 2001.

3. The third element is the implementation of the revised pay structure. In December 2001, agreement was reached, after lengthy and complex negotiations, with the recognised trade unions on implementation of this structure based on paying the market rate for the role performed, rather than on generic grade. The trade unions balloted their members. The Association of First Division Civil Servants (FDA, representing senior staff) and the Institution of professionals, Managers and Specialists (IPMS, now Prospect, representing specialist and technical grades) both achieved around 90% votes in favour of accepting the new arrangements.

4. The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS, representing executive and administrative grades, the largest of the three unions) returned a vote of 54.7% in favour of acceptance.

5. Arrangements are now in hand to implement the changes to pay for the majority of staff in February 2002, backdated to 1 August 2001. Those staff with complex pay histories (e.g. promotion since 1 August 2001; other change of grade; new starters) will have their changes effected at the end of March 2002.

Specialist staff

6. Some Members will recall a campaign of letters last autumn to members of the MPA and the Mayor, as well as senior management of the MPS, from staff mainly in the identification and fingerprint grades. The campaign had been supported by the IPMS. The essence of the campaign was to highlight the differences in pay between staff who had joined since 1996 and those who had longer service on higher protected pay rates and to stress the need for a beneficial outcome, for them, of the pay and grading review. The review found that many specialist grades were being paid below the relevant market rate and shadow pay bands have been agreed with the IPMS to take account of the different markets applicable to many specialists. The outcome of the IPMS vote indicates that these staff are content with the new arrangements.

Appeals

7. The closeness of the PCS vote shows that some staff have concerns about the outcome of the review, particularly those in the “lower” weighted jobs or staff who have not gained significantly.

8. A key factor in dealing with these concerns, which apply to staff, management and the trade unions, is the application of an appeal process. MPS management acknowledges that, in conducting an exercise of this complexity, some roles may not have been correctly evaluated or assimilated. An appeal process has now been agreed with the trade unions to deal with individuals, groups of individuals or functions which those involved believe to have been wrongly banded.

9. The aim is to have all appeals completed by the end of June 2002. HR Directorate will identify additional resources to meet this aim. The additional resources will come mainly from within HR Directorate by temporarily moving staff to the Pay Review team but others will come from other business groups.

10. When considering appeals, account will need to be taken of any impact on other jobs elsewhere. Nevertheless, successful appeals will result in the correct pay band being applied from 1 August 2001.

11. In the longer term, there will be a requirement to maintain the new structure. This will cover such matters as defining the appropriate pay band for newly created functions and establishing whether changes in role responsibility merit a change in the pay band (up or down).

12. Meetings have been held with the trade unions to discuss matters of continuing concern to them about the new structure. Both management and the trade unions are keen to resolve these concerns and meetings will continue to be held regularly.

Industrial staff

13. Agreement is close on the arrangements applicable to industrial staff. In the main, they will receive a percentage increase to current weekly rates of pay with effect from 1 August 2001 and will be assimilated to the non-industrial structure by 31 July 2002. By this means, they will gain the benefit of improvements in pay now with further benefits, such as annual increments, coming from the move to non-industrial status.

14. Regular meetings are being held with the industrial trade unions to take forward the de-industrialisation process. In due course, this will remove the blue-collar - white-collar divide and achieve a single status workforce, although there are concerns about the potential cost of de-industrialising the whole of the Catering Department workforce. This group of staff is likely to remain in industrial grades for the time being. De-industrialisation will be undertaken on a group by group basis, for example, a meeting has already been held to discuss arrangements affecting drivers. For some groups, the process will be relatively simple and can be achieved quickly. For others assimilation to the non-industrial pay spine will be conditional on acceptance of changes to working practices.

Next steps

15. The move away from a grading structure to a role based structure will take some time to be fully implemented. A communications strategy has been agreed to ensure that all staff are kept informed of developments. Among the actions planned are:

• a weekly update on the Corporate News Intranet Site
• an updated Frequently Asked Questions site
• regular column in The Job.

16. Work is also under way on consequential amendments to various personnel policy issues and the competency framework team will be fully consulted to ensure the implications for civil staff are taken into account. Examples of issues to be addressed include:

• the need for clarity on membership of promotion, selection and discipline boards
• recruitment literature to specify the role rather than the grade
• internal job advertising to specify the role and the pay band
• standard terms in contracts of employment to be reviewed and adjusted accordingly.

17. The changes, particularly the introduction of a pay band to recognise the special responsibilities of key frontline staff such as station reception officers and communications officers, will improve career development opportunities for the civil staff. Staff who are selected for jobs, which previously were in the same grade as their current job, will now have their career development recognised by increased pay appropriate to the new job. In the past, a move to jobs within the same grade resulted in no changes to pay. The communications strategy will help to make clear to staff the additional benefits, apart from improvements in pay, which will come from the new arrangements.

C. Financial implications

There are no financial implications over and above the additional funds already made available for this year and next year for improvements to civil staff pay. Provisions for the shadow pay bands referred to in paragraph 6 and for the pay band to recognise special responsibilities referred to in paragraph 17 have been taken into account.

D. Background papers

• Report 4 to HRC on 19 April 2001.

E. Contact details

Report author: Michael Shurety, 020 7230 0684

For information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

Send an e-mail linking to this page

Feedback