Everyone's A Winner!

Stop a person on the street and ask them what their main concerns are about living in the town of Hartlepool.

I'm guessing, but I should think crime levels would be up there somewhere or more specifically anti-social behaviour; litter perhaps would be one of the concerns raised and even dog dirt, or maybe the Council's rubbish collection service; binge drinkers; lack of facilities for the young; the future of hospital services; and of course, the high level of council tax for those who have to pay it.

Now I'm not suggesting that the Council isn't attempting to address these things - well most of them - but what I am suggesting is that, given the tasks in hand, it's surprising just how much time over the last few years the Council or, more accurately, the Council's administration, has spent looking at its own pay structures, modifying its own organisational structure or has been busily carrying out employee surveys of one sort or another. Navel gazing is what it's generally called as opposed to naval gazing which is something quite different and usual involves an unspecified number of sailors.

Notwithstanding the shock that was felt when the salaries of the administration's executive salaries were first publicised, we have since then had the issues of retention payments for senior office staff, the review of 2nd and 3rd tier executive salaries, the equal pay awards relating to lower grade staff such as dinner ladies resulting from an Industrial Tribunal test case; and now, what's become known as the 'single status job evaluation' of all non-executive staff. What is noticeable about all of these exercises is how all of them have invariably contributed to a general increase in council staff salaries. It's no wonder that navel-gazing has become so popular at the Civic Centre.

Having discovered that they were funding executive salaries which they previously would have considered only to be enjoyed by those having significant lottery wins, Hartlepool's Tax Payers must have despaired when they read that they would now be forced to foot the cost of a £10m increased council wage bill by 2011.  Yes, union and council bosses have apparently agreed a deal, (which apparently results from EU legislation), aimed at giving equal pay to men and women.

Now first and foremost, if there is anyone out there who still believes that men and women should not receive equal pay for work of equal value then frankly, they are living in the dark ages. However, the Equal Pay Act, which was supposed to see an end to pay discrimination reached the statute book way back in 1970. Yes that's before decimalisation. So it's reasonable to ask how, some 38 years later, Hartlepool Borough Council has managed to find itself in a position were it is being forced to right, more-or-less overnight, what appears to have been a very long-standing wrong. There are no brownie points here either for the Trade Unions who would appear to have been sitting on their thumbs for the last 38 years while pay discrimination was apparently allowed to continue.

But that was then. Unfortunately, for the moment we are obliged to deal with the now.

The Council has carried out a Job Evaluation and produced a new grading structure. The results of this would indicate that some 85% of council staff will either gain increases to their salary or stay at the same level. The remaining 15%, which amounts to some 600 workers, may see their salaries decrease. This is a synopsis of the Press Release issued by the Council's PR Department so obviously we need to examine things a little more closely.

As someone who has been involved in several Job Evaluation exercises both as a union representative and as a manager, I should say now that none of them has been a good experience. Firstly, I have not come across a Job Evaluation scheme yet which didn't have its own, underlying agenda. Nor have I come across one were any workers came out of the scheme to see their salaries 'plummet' as the scare stories in the Hartlepool Mail would have us believe. What I have seen is the situation were the salaries of any potential losers were 'red circled' or frozen until future pay rises were allowed to overtake existing salary levels and I am quite certain that this will be the minimum approach adopted by the Council's scheme. I would also say that, given the opportunity for incremental pay increases within the council's grading structure, combined with what can only be described as a predominance of weak management, then no one should be surprised if even these paper losses are countered quickly with glowing appraisals along with associated pay rises soon afterwards.

Secondly, it's generally accepted that a good Job Evaluation is one that produces a result were the number of winners is roughly equal to the number of losers with by far the majority of job participants remaining the same. Indeed, it is often stipulated at the beginning of an evaluation exercise that it should be 'financially neutral'. This made me initially suspicious of the Council's announcement which, while it specified the number of potential 'losers' somehow managed to fail to separate the number of 'winners' from those who would remain at the same salary level. I strongly suspected that the number of 'winners' was significantly higher than the number of 'losers' which would be indicative of a flawed evaluation process which had been purposely skewed to keep both the workforce and its Unions sweet. All very well except it is the council tax payer who will ultimately bare the cost. Sure enough, on further investigation, it turned out that no less than 58% of the council's workforce are set to receive pay increases as a result of the evaluation - an extraordinary percentage - a further 28% will remain the same while only 14% will - in theory - see their pay reduced. I say 'in theory' because this has turned out to be a very unusual Job Evaluation exercise indeed; one that has no 'losers' at all. My reasons are quite clear.

The following extract form the Cabinet Report of the Chief Financial Officer dated 29th May, 2007, makes it clear that some £400,000 had already been reserved by the Council, even before the job evaluation exercise had finished, to lessen any negative financial impact on any employees whose salary would be downgraded as a result.

Now any avid reader of the Mayor, Stuart Drummond's Mail column will remember the staunch defence he made recently against using what had then been revealed as the Council's £32m reserves to reduce high increases in council tax. Put simply, it wasn't financially prudent to do so. Strange then how such prudence appears to fail when it comes to funding council staff salaries; even those whose jobs have been evaluated as being incorrectly graded for years. Evidently, in these circumstances, a £3.6m raid on the reserves will do very nicely. At this point, I should state that £3.6m is equivalent to a 12% rise in council tax.

So What Now?

The job evaluation exercise is now over and the results, are in. Those results differ somewhat depending on whether you are a council employee or a mere taxpayer. If you one of an ever growing number of council employees, the main result is that your pay structure is about to receive a cash injection of some £10m. On the other hand, if you are a mere taxpayer, the main result is that you are one of the poor sods who is going to have to help pay for it.

The sum pretty much guarantees maximum increases in council tax for the foreseeable future bearing in mind that the increase in pay is exclusive of any annual increments. It cannot be guaranteed either that such a sum can be entirely met from revenue with further raids on reserves entirely possible.

Sadly, time has caught up with me and I will have to continue the second part of this article at a later date.

David Wilson