Agenda and minutes

Members are asked to declare any disclosable pecuniary or affected interests in respect of any matter to be considered at this meeting.

Any Member with a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in a matter should withdraw from the meeting when the matter is under consideration and should notify the Democratic Services Officer in attendance that they are withdrawing as they have such an interest. If the Disclosable Pecuniary Interest is not entered on the register of Members interests the Monitoring Officer must be notified of the interest within 28 days.

Any Member with an affected Interest in a matter must disclose the interest to the meeting.  There is no requirement to withdraw from the meeting when the interest is only an affected interest, but the Monitoring Officer should be notified of the interest, if not previously notified of it, within 28 days of the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 18 July 2018.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the committee meeting held on 18 July 2018 by approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

There were no urgent items of business.

A verbal update from the Chairman of the Local Joint Committee.

Councillor Allen reported that discussion had been held with UNISON and GMB regarding the National pay award and market premia. Prior to the meeting both UNISON and GMB had indicated that they needed to send off the proposal to their regional/national/legal office for review. However, GMB and UNISON both confirmed at the LJC  that they had decided to reach a local collective agreement on the  national pay award as proposed and set out in the report to be implemented by Bracknell Forest Council. The agreement included the caveat from UNISON that the pay grades should be reviewed to see if they could be changed to six steps (ie taking 5 years from bottom to top) to reach the top of the scale rather than seven. ACAS recommendations were that it should be no more than six, as it could be seen as age discriminatory and it was pointed out that it was not proposed to change this element of the pay structure. However if BFC were to implement the national award in full then as the report sets out this would increase the risk of two grades being considerably longer that six ie ie grade I to eight and grade H to ten spinal column points.

It was reported that both unions agreed with market premia payment.

The Committee is asked to note the minutes of the Local Joint Committee held on 18 July 2018 and Education Employment Sub Committee held on 20 November 2018.

The Committee noted the minutes of the Local Joint Committee held on 18 July 2018.

To receive a report on Transport Development Section- Recruitment Market Premia Payments.

The Director: Place, Planning and Regeneration presented a report on the requirement for the Transport Development Section to have a market premia payment in place to attract applicants to vacant Senior Engineer posts.

The posts discussed were responsible for large scale projects within the borough and had been vacant for over 13 months..

The Committee questioned whether a joint agreement could be put in place and were advised that this option had already been considered with Ringway, one of the Council’s contractors but they didn’t have anyone available at this time.

The Committee queried whether a temporary contact at a higher salary might be a better option. It was noted that this had been considered but temporary positions were harder to recruit to as the pay was often better in the commercial sector.

It was confirmed that market premia payments were subject to regular review.

RESOLVED that a market premia payment with scope for up to 20% be added to the vacant senior engineer posts.

To consider the following motion:

That pursuant to Regulation 21 of the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Access to Information) Regulations 2000 and having regard to the public interest, members of the public and press be excluded from the meeting for the consideration of item 9 which involves the likely disclosure of exempt information under the following category of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972:

(4)       Information relating to any consultations or negotiations, or contemplated consultations, or negotiations, in connection with any labour relations matter arising between the authority or a Minister of the Crown and employees of, or officer holders under, the authority.

That pursuant to Regulation 21 of the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Access to Information) Regulations 2000 and having regard to the public interest, members of the public and press be excluded from the meeting for the consideration of item 13 which involves the likely disclosure of exempt information under the following category of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972:

(3)        Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person.

To receive a report on Bracknell Grades – National Pay Award.

The Committee received a report from the Director: Human Resources on the Bracknell grades – National Pay Award.

The Committee discussed the options proposed.

RESOLVED that:

2.1       Option two is approved as it is the model to provide the least impact on staff, and most cost effective for the Council.

2.2       At the request of Unison, the Employment Committee agree to review and explore to seek to reduce the number of spinal column points to 6 in groups I and H.