Agenda item

Christina Hefferon, AD Organisational Development and HR, informed Members of the recently launched consultation on workforce savings.

It was confirmed that, as the council’s budget continued to reduce, (while demand for services continued to increase),  there was a need to identify cost savings. In an effort to make savings without reducing staffing levels, two areas of potential savings had been identified:

1.  Mileage Allowances

Current allowances provided staff a payment of £1,000 for every 1000 miles driven by car. Withdrawal of this allowance could mean a saving equivalent to 4.5 FTE posts (paid at the top of salary level 5). Historically the allowance had been seen as compensation for a car’s wear and tear. However, this was already factored into the HMRC recommended mileage rates of 45p per mile for all business mileage undertaken. SBC currently payed this rate and there were no proposals to change this.

It had therefore been proposed to remove the £1,000 mileage allowance with effect from 1^st August 2016.

Payment Protection Arrangements

SBC’s redeployment policy currently provided 3 years salary protection to staff redeployed into posts one salary level lower than their current post. Benchmarking data indicated this was out of step with other local authorities.

To resolve this, it was proposed to reduce the pay protection period from 3 years to 1 year. Consideration had been given to restructure consultations that may already be underway or scheduled.

Slough was now consulting on the above, with the following objectives:

•  to listen to staff comments and suggestions

•  to consider alternatives that meet the identified objectives

•  to understand where there may be negative impact for staff that has not previously been considered and find ways of reducing that impact to a minimum.

The consultation began on Monday 21^st March and would close on Friday 22^nd April.

Members asked a number of questions, including:

Were staff redeployed to a lower grade offered the option of redundancy?

It was a legal requirement to offer redundancy in such an instance, provided that the post into which they are redeployed is considered to be a suitable alternative post, Staff had the right to be offered redeployment, if a suitable role was available, regardless of length of their tenure. However, staff were only eligible for a redundancy payment once they had achieved two years continuous local government service.

Staff morale could be adversely affected by the proposals. How often were staff members redeployed to a lower grade?

Not often. It was expected that the number of staff affected by the proposed changes to payment protection would be small.

Resolved -  That the report be noted.