Councillor calls for public debate on Council pay

Councillor William Hobhouse

Rochdale Township Chairman, Councillor William Hobhouse, has revealed that salary rates within Rochdale Council 'differ markedly' from the salaries anticipated by the Council's Pay and Grading Review.

Council Tax could increase or services may be cut in order to bring the wage bill into line with the Review.

Councillor Hobhouse called for a public debate on the Review, which determines the level of pay of all council employees outside senior management.

The Pay and Grading Review is currently discussed privately inside the Council and has always been the subject of controversy because it is kept so firmly out of the public eye.

The Council's wage bill is funded by Council Tax, which is paid by all home owners in the Rochdale Borough.

Councillor Hobhouse said in his Rochdale Online Councillor Diary: "If the cost of the wage bill goes up, government doesn’t send over a few extra millions to pay for them. That leaves two options: either the Council Tax goes up or Council services get cut.

"However there is another long term consequence: we already have a marked difference in some Council services between the level of pay in the private and public sector. Contrary to perception there are services in which employees get much better paid if they work for the Council. Quite apart from better pensions and better job security, some Council employees, if they left the Council to go to work in the private sector, would be paid substantially less.

"There are some worrying suggestions that this gap will widen for some Council staff as a result of the Pay and Grading Review. It will make these services poor Value for Money. Value for Money is one of the guiding principles to ensure that Council tax payers’ money is not wasted.

"The implication of this stares us in the face: privatisation, externalisation, commissioning, whatever you want to call it. Do we want it? I don’t, but shouldn’t we expect the public sector to be as good as the private sector for the same money?

"It is time to have a public debate about this rather than leaving the issue to be discussed privately inside the Council."

Each employee is graded in relation to their skills, scope and the qualification of their job. Every employee on a particular grade is paid within the same grade range.

As a result of the Review, some salaries are increased, some remain the same, while others could go down. The Council decides the level of pay for each grade.