Chief executives have welcomed an offer to be more involved in next year’s pay deal, following this year’s controversial negotiations.
In a letter to chief executives in England, Wales and Northern Ireland last week, the managing director of Local Government Employers, Jan Parkinson, urges them to ‘get much more heavily involved in national bargaining issues, and help shape this important and valuable structure for the future’.
The letter follows controversy over the revised 1-1.25% pay deal to unions, agreed last July, which she admits in her letter ‘has been, to say the least, contentious’. While defending the offer, she also accepts some councils believed it had been arranged ‘behind closed doors, which was not the case’, and adds: ‘We want to ensure the inevitable need for confidentiality during some parts of the process doesn’t unduly impact on our need to make sure you understand what is happening, when and why.’
Director general of SOLACE, David Clark, said: ‘Some chief executives feel powerlessness over the annual pay deal, which they feel is something done to them rather than by them, and would be happy to be more involved and consulted.’
The revised offer was so politically contentious, since it improved an earlier offer of 0.5%, that it could only be agreed in a vote by the employers’ side of the National Joint Council, the first time since 1997. Conservatives on the NJC opposed it, but were out-voted.
The offer caused immediate controversy, with Conservative councils such as Birmingham City threatening not to implement it and arguing that the employers should have stuck to their original offer of 0.5% or even zero.
A separate proposal of a pay freeze to chief executives has been referred to arbitration by the Association of Local Authority Chief Executives.
In her letter, Ms Parkinson recommends reducing the number of negotiating bodies, ensure they consult more with councils, improve national employers’ communications, and focus more on controlling and cutting employment costs.