The report of the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer is now attached.

A report presented the draft Manchester City Council Pay Policy Statement for 2020/21. The statement set out the direction of travel in relation to pay for Manchester’s officers for the year ahead and detailed how that would seek to support the delivery of the City Council’s aims and objectives.

The report explained that the statement had been developed to comply with the legal requirement set out under section 38 (1) of the Localism Act 2011 and takes account of other relevant legislative requirements.

The draft Statement also included information on the Council’s ‘Gender Pay Gap’ and work to proactively promote workforce equality, in accordance with the requirement to carry out Gender Pay Reporting set out within The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017.

It was explained that on 11 November 2019 the Council had been accredited by the Living Wage Foundation as a ‘Living Wage Employer’. The Living Wage Foundation had also announced the new real living wage hourly rate for the coming year of £9.30 per hour, an increase of 30p per hour. Accredited Living Wage Employers were required to implement the rise within six months. The Manchester Living Wage would therefore be aligned to the new real living wage rate from 1 April 2020 in accordance with the Council’s policy to keep them aligned.

Decisions

1.         To recommend that the Council approves the draft Pay Policy Statement appended to these minutes.

2.         To recommend that the Council approves the organisation’s Pay and Grading Structure for the financial year 2020/21 (Appendix A of the Pay Policy Statement 2020/21).

3.         To note the formal accreditation of the Council as a ‘Living Wage Employer’ by the Living Wage Foundation and the alignment of the Manchester Living Wage to the new real living wage rate of £9.30 per hour from 1 April 2020.

The report of the Director of HR/OD is now attached.

A report submitted by the Interim Director HROD outlined a number of family friendly leave policies, pay provisions and entitlements offered by the Council to its staff with the aim of supporting parents.  It was proposed that these previously separate policies were combined into a single policy framework with comprehensive guidance to accompany the policy.

It was also proposed that the wording of the criteria for Maternity Support Leave was tightened as concerns had been raised that the current wording was open to exploitation and that assistance was offered to employees who became special guardians by allowing them access to the Maternity Support leave offer.

It was explained that the aim of these proposals was to present a single coherent approach and policy framework that could be used in conjunction with the existing flexible working offer to help employees balance demands of work and childcare.

Decision

The Committee approve combining the current details of the provisions into a single revised Family Friendly Policy Framework and Guidance, including the amendments to Maternity Support leave provisions in order to minimise misuse and provide special guardians with access to Maternity Support leave.

The report of the Director of HR/OD is now attached.

The Councils current bereavement provision allowed for limited paid leave to attend the funeral and deal with probate matters following the death of a close family member, partner or dependent.  The existing provision did not stipulate the amount of time that was reasonable which could cause inconsistency in application across the organisation.  Furthermore, this only applied to employees with 26 weeks continuous service.  Any employees with less than this were only entitled to unpaid leave.

It was highlighted that the Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay Regulations 2020, known as ‘Jacks Law’, would come into force from 6 April 2020. The regulations provided employed parents the right to statutory leave and pay entitlements if they lost a child under the age of 18, or suffered a stillbirth from 24 weeks of pregnancy, irrespective of how long they had worked for an employer.

As a result of this, the Committee considered a report that set out proposed updates to the Council’s Special Leave Policy to reflect the new legislation.  Given the high value that the Council placed on its workforce, and the emphasis that the statutory entitlements should be the minimum that an employee should expect, it was proposed that the Council implemented a policy provision of a day one right to two weeks of paid (full pay) bereavement leave. Aside from this, it was also recommended that the Council met the statutory requirements in terms of eligibility, flexibility of leave, and notice requirements.

It was explained that if agreed, the revised policy and provisions would be implemented in line with the regulations coming into force on 6 April 2020 and the Shared Service Centre were aware of the revised provisions and were able to process any requests from the implementation date as these would fall under Special Leave and be processed as such.

Decision

The Committee approves the introduction of a day one right to two weeks’ paid parental bereavement leave in the existing Special Leave Policy..

The report of the Chief Executive is now attached.

The Committee considered a report of the Chief Executive which set out a proposal to retain the Deputy Director of Children’s Services and regrade the post of Head of Locality in the Directorate for Children’s and Education.

The Deputy Strategic Director post was an SS4 post which reported directly to the Strategic Director of Children’s and Education Services and had strategic leadership responsibility for complex and multifaceted statutory services, lead responsibility for the delivery of the Children and Young People plan, Ofsted Action Plan, Directorate Business Plan and contributed towards the Council’s priorities as set out within the Our Corporate Plan.

The post holder had been in post since 2017, and during this time they had made a significant contribution to the continual improvement of the service and the experiences outcomes for Manchester’s children; as evidenced in Manchester’s Children’s Services being judged no longer inadequate in 2017 and the positive findings reflected in the most recent Ofsted focused visit published in January 2020.

The continual progress and success of the service had made the post holder 'attractive' and a target for recruitment agencies working for neighbouring authorities; offering significant financial incentives. Whilst expressing a commitment to Manchester City Council, personal circumstances and career aspirations were competing pull/push factors, which were compounded by the role being 'evaluated down' in 2017 (immediately prior to appointment) and the post holder being at the top of grade SS4, thus restricting the financial remuneration. 

It was for these reasons that it was proposed that the Council made a retention payment to the Deputy Director Children Services to the value of £10,000 per annum, with a review period at 18 months which was consistent with the standard arrangements for Market Rate Supplement payment.

In addition to the Deputy Director post, the Head of Locality post was and continued to be subject to the Senior Officer Appraisal approach; to date the existing post holders had made positive contributions to the Directorate’s progress. The posts were established to build and strengthen local partnerships, provide sufficient operational management/leadership capacity to drive the quality of social work practice, performance and compliance. However, in accordance with and driven by the Directorate Plan and ambition, the posts had evolved over time and the breadth and span of responsibility had increased to support the significant progress and strategic direction of the Directorate.

The increased portfolio of accountabilities and responsibilities of these posts would be reflected in the Senior Officer Appraisal arrangements and ensure the post holders continued to make a positive contribution in the delivery of the Council and Directorate priorities; as set out within the Our Manchester Strategy, Children and Young People Plan and Our Corporate Plan.

Decisions

The Committee:-

1.         Recommends to Council that a market rate retention supplement of £10,000 be made to the Deputy Strategic Director of Children’s Services to ensure the retention of the current post holder in light of local market forces. This has the effect of increasing the salary to £115,940.

2.         Approves the regrade of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 12.

The report of the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods) is now attached.

The Committee considered a report of the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods) that sought approval to apply a 10% market supplement rate to the role of Highways Development Specialist (currently evaluated at Grade SS1 £60,857 to £65,865) with the flexibility to increase the uplift to 15%.

The creation of the role of Highways Development Specialist was approved by the Personnel Committee in June 2019 as part of the overall Highways structure, however because of the importance of the role, the service worked closely with Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) who seconded an officer for a period of 8 months to establish systems and processes to support the development of the pipeline. This secondment ended in December 2019.  The role was advertised in December 2019, however, the response was disappointing with only 5 applications being received and in January 2020, two applicants were interviewed however no appointment was made as the candidates could not demonstrate the required skills and level of experience needed for the role.

A benchmarking exercise was undertaken of comparable roles across the region and nationally.  The salaries of similar vacancies advertised varied between £66,000 to £76,000 per annum. The strongest and closest comparable roles are Strategic Manager Highways & Transport (Isle of Wight) and Divisional Manager - Transportation & Highways (Liverpool City Council). Salaries ranged between £66,629 - £76,278 for these roles.  To ensure the Council could attract candidates who may be leaving existing permanent jobs or commuting from outside Manchester to apply for the role, it was proposed that a market rate recruitment supplement of 10% (£6,586) be applied to the role. This would take the overall salary to £72,451 which was the equivalent to the penultimate SCP 23 of SS2 and was also the mid-point of other comparable salaries of similar roles offered by competitors.

It was explained that this supplement also took into account the Council’s policy and normal practice in that the salary would be fixed at £72,451 (with yearly reviews) as normal practice was to reduce the market supplement payment each year to offset against the cost of living award in order to keep the overall salary package unchanged.

Due to the specialist nature of the role, if there was no success in attracting and appointing a suitable candidate, it was proposed that flexibility be granted to be able to increase the market rate recruitment supplement payment to 15% (£9,879) taking the overall salary package to £75,744.

Decision

The Committee agrees to apply a market rate recruitment supplement to the post of Highways Development Specialist with immediate effect.  This has the effect of raising the annual salary to £72,451(10%) or up to £75,744 (15%).

The report of the Chief Executive is now attached.

The Committee considered a report of the Chief Executive which sought approval for strengthening the senior management capacity within the Growth and Development Directorate to deliver the Council's plans.

At present the Strategic Director (Growth and Development) was supported by three SS4 roles –  Director of Planning, Building Control and Licensing; Director of Housing & Residential Growth; and Director of Development & Corporate Estates. The latter two roles were vacant but there was an Interim Director of Housing & Residential Growth in place.  A review of senior management capacity had been undertaken to ensure that the Council had suitable arrangements for Manchester to provide the necessary conditions to grow the city’s employment base, invest in quality of life issues and deliver the significant numbers of new homes needed to support the expansion of the city’s economy.  Of growing priority and strategic importance was the aim of inclusive growth as set out in the Council’s Developing a more inclusive economy - Our Manchester Industrial Strategy to put people at the centre of growth; aligning to Greater Manchester and the national Local Industrial Strategy to promote and drive inclusive growth in the conurbation core; support existing and future sectors, increase productivity but crucially support more residents into better quality jobs.

As a result of this, the remit of the Head of Work and Skills had significantly increased in providing strategic leadership for Our Manchester Industrial Strategy, Digital City and development of the delivery plans.  To reflect this wider remit with extra duties and responsibilities, including delivery of the city’s digital strategy, it was proposed to redesignate the post of Head of Work and Skills as Director of Inclusive Economy. Job evaluation had been conducted in line with the Council’s procedures and policies which indicates that the post should be regraded to SS4.

It was also proposed to bring greater alignment between the delivery of city centre regeneration with the policy aspects of local planning and infrastructure to provide more strategic capacity and focus on the delivery of critical and growing agendas for the Council.  Within the Growth and Development Directorate the main responsibility for these agendas sat with the current Head of City Centre Growth and Regeneration. The role had evolved to include more than the traditional ‘city centre’ and had oversight of the connected aspects of regeneration including influencing regionally and nationally.  To reflect the greater emphasis on these agendas and extra duties and responsibilities within this remit, it was proposed to redesignate the post of Head of City Centre Growth and Regeneration as Director of City Centre Growth and Infrastructure. Job evaluation had been conducted in line with the Council’s procedures and policies which indicated that the post should be regraded to SS4.

It was explained that these proposals were designated as regrades as the current post holders had been carrying out the identified additional work. The Council's senior manager job evaluation process had been applied in reviewing the proposed roles and grades. Appropriate policies had been considered in developing these proposals and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.

The report of the Chief Executive now attached.

The Committee considered a report of the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer that sought approval for the creation of the post of Deputy Director of HR and OD in support of the restructure of the HR and OD Service and to recommend that Council approved use of a market supplement if required in recruiting to the Director of HR and OD post.

When the previous Director - HR and OD left the Council in February 2019 it was determined that recruitment would be on a ‘like for like’ basis. Pending the recruitment process, extra capacity was procured on an interim part-time basis and has supported the service since April 2019.  An Executive Search and Selection partner was procured and a recruitment exercise commenced in May 2019. The Council was unable to appoint and the decision was made to continue with interim arrangements to review the potential market.  At the same time, other significant vacancies arose within the HR and OD senior management team and it was decided that a restructure was necessary to ensure appropriate arrangements going forward.   After discussion with the service and various stakeholders a revised structure was provided in December 2019. Formal consultation had now ended and the structure was being implemented.

It was explained that some key vacancies had allowed for a fundamental review of the senior team which had been streamlined with realignment of key HR and OD functions.  The revised structure proposed that all strategic and transactional HR functions are under the leadership of one senior manager working alongside the Head of OD. This role would be responsible for the day to day leadership and management of the HR functions as well as providing a primary deputising function for the Director of HR and OD on strategic projects and partnerships.  As such it was proposed that that a new position of Deputy Director - HR and OD was to be established by combining and deleting the two SS2 posts of Head of HR Operations and Head of Workforce Strategy (SS2). Job Evaluation had been undertaken and indicated that the new role should be graded at SS3 (£78,715 - £87,217).

It was also reported that further recruitment search and benchmarking activity was underway to recruit a Director of HR and OD. However, given the urgent and critical nature of this appointment, Council approval was sought for a delegation to the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer in consultation with the Chief Executive and Executive Member for Finance and HR to be able to approve a market supplement of up to £15,000 if required. Any supplement would only be applied if necessary.

Decisions

The Committee:-

1.         Approve the creation of the post of Deputy Director of HR and OD at grade SS3 (£78,715 - £87,217).

2.         In approving the establishment of the above post, approve the deletion of the posts of Head of HR Operations (SS2) and Head of Workforce Strategy (SS2).

3.         Approve the redesignation of the post of Strategic Business Partner - Health  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.