To approve as a correct record the minutes of General Services Committee meeting held on 10 December 2014.

The minutes of the General Services Committee held on 10 December 2014 were approved as a correct record.

To receive additional items that the Chair is of the opinion should be considered as a matter of urgency, in accordance with Section 100B (4) (b) of the Local Government Act 1972.

There were no urgent items of business.

No interests were declared.

The Committee was informed that the council needed to modernise its pay structure as the current bands and pay points were too broad. Bands overlapped and therefore some pay points were not needed. The committee was asked to agree an new job evaluation scheme, which was already used by many other councils, for implementation when the council had reached that stage of its project.

Officers confirmed costs would be cut by collecting job profiles into families. This meant that instead of paying to review single job profiles, which cost £80 each review, it would in future only be necessary to review job families.

The Union had not objected to any initial proposals but they would be included in the official consultation in due course. National unions were supportive of the scheme. Staff would be fully briefed.

RESOLVED:

That the Committee authorises the adoption of the Greater London Provincial Council’s (GLPC) job evaluation scheme to evaluate all role profiles developed as part of the pay and reward review and that the council should use the GLPC scheme thereafter.

New regulations would be introduced after April 2015 that allowed parental pay for new born babies or adoptions to be shared between the two partners. This in effect gave men more of an opportunity to claim paternity leave. The Council currently provided an enhanced maternity pay to all women in that they received half pay for the first twelve weeks of their leave. The council needed to decide whether to expand that to men as well.

Members clarified that there would only be twelve weeks half pay between partners. Therefore, if both partners worked at the council they could not both take twelve weeks half pay. Officers stated they had not considered removing the half pay altogether because they wanted to support families, be seen as an employer of choice and also did not want to open the council up to potential sex discrimination claims.

It was forecast that the maximum cost of this new regulation would be £54,000 per annum although officers thought this would be considerably less each year.

RESOLVED:

That the Committee authorise the payment of an enhanced rate of shared parental pay to employees rather than the statutory rate of £138.18 per week.

The committee agreed to exclude members of the press and public for the following items

These minutes are exempt on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as specified in Part I of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 or it being confidential for the purposes of Section 100A(2) of that Act.

These minutes are exempt on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as specified in Part I of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 or it being confidential for the purposes of Section 100A(2) of that Act.

These minutes are exempt on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as specified in Part I of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 or it being confidential for the purposes of Section 100A(2) of that Act.