Equal pay for Equal Job query

Equeco

Hello everyone, I am a manager in a London Local authority. We get paid accorind to pay grades allocated to your role. Although within a grade you have different scales everyone doing the same job has to be paid within the relecant pay grade. A vacancy came up a while ago in the management team where I work and it went internally to someone from another directorate. The other directorate was desperate to get rid of the person (but that is a separate story ). The job had been advertised at the pay grade all 3 managers in the team are on. This person was however on a higher grade at their other job. At the time I recall my head of service being worried that they would have to give us a pay rise, which is not so simple as they have to review pay grades, jobs descriptions , etc. In the end they sorted it out, now I know, by my service paying the advertised salary and the other directorate "topping up" the difference. The money is still all coming from the same local authority. I obviously don't have access to my colleague's payslip to know how her salary is broken down but I do know that she's not shown as earning my grade plus and additional, she shows as being on a different (higher) pay grade. This means we are both doing the same job and are being paid differently (not different scales but different grades altogether) and they are being paid even beyond what the job was advertised at. I'm fuming not only because this person is so rubbish that I've been doing half her job (that is yet another story) but because interesting I had a similar scenario discussed with HR literally 2 days ago whereby I was querying whether a member of my team could be seconded to another role in a lower grade (to meet her specific needs) but to keep her on her current (higher) salary and I was told that it wouldn't be possible as the council could be liable under equal pay claim!!!
I have emailed HR and the Head of Service today asking for an explanation and I know they will come back saying that my service is only paying up to my grade and the other service is paying the difference. Is this yet not a breach of equal pay act? Many thanks for reading

Savvy_Sue

I don't think it is: I suspect it is a 'protection of salary' thing and the theory is that if a person transfers on the 'wrong' grade, then they don't get any payrises until everyone else catches up with them.

As for why you couldn't arrange that for a colleague, I don't know. Possibly because they've no interest in doing it for lower grades.

I'm not convinced you'll get anywhere with this, but now would be the time to approach your union.

Equeco

Thanks! It was HR who told me I couldn't offer a secondment to a member of.my team for a job on a lower paygrade whilst she kept her higher salary because of breach to equal pay for equal job. She would have to accept the lower pay grade. I will approach the union indeed. Thanks for your time.

TELLIT01

You are looking at two different situations. The first is a permanent move and the department to which they are moving must feel they need the person and have to 'protect' the salary in order to get the person. That person won't get any payrises until the pay band catches up with them.
The second is a temporary assignment and internal rules may not allow secondment down grades whilst retaining the salary.

Gavin83

Equeco wrote: »

Hello everyone, I am a manager in a London Local authority. We get paid accorind to pay grades allocated to your role. Although within a grade you have different scales everyone doing the same job has to be paid within the relecant pay grade. A vacancy came up a while ago in the management team where I work and it went internally to someone from another directorate. The other directorate was desperate to get rid of the person (but that is a separate story ). The job had been advertised at the pay grade all 3 managers in the team are on. This person was however on a higher grade at their other job. At the time I recall my head of service being worried that they would have to give us a pay rise, which is not so simple as they have to review pay grades, jobs descriptions , etc. In the end they sorted it out, now I know, by my service paying the advertised salary and the other directorate "topping up" the difference. The money is still all coming from the same local authority. I obviously don't have access to my colleague's payslip to know how her salary is broken down but I do know that she's not shown as earning my grade plus and additional, she shows as being on a different (higher) pay grade. This means we are both doing the same job and are being paid differently (not different scales but different grades altogether) and they are being paid even beyond what the job was advertised at. I'm fuming not only because this person is so rubbish that I've been doing half her job (that is yet another story) but because interesting I had a similar scenario discussed with HR literally 2 days ago whereby I was querying whether a member of my team could be seconded to another role in a lower grade (to meet her specific needs) but to keep her on her current (higher) salary and I was told that it wouldn't be possible as the council could be liable under equal pay claim!!!
I have emailed HR and the Head of Service today asking for an explanation and I know they will come back saying that my service is only paying up to my grade and the other service is paying the difference. Is this yet not a breach of equal pay act? Many thanks for reading

Are you sure their pay isn't temporary? It's quite common for someone moving into a lower paid job in the public sector to get a pay freeze for a year or two.

Also I'm assuming this equal pay policy is an internal one so what are the exact terms of this? There is no legal right for two people to be paid the same as long as it's not for a discriminatory reason, which this clearly isn't.

I also expect there is no way they'll give you all a pay rise, given it's likely to cost them an awful lot of money. If you push it and they're found at fault I think the best case scenario is they'll get rid of this new person. Is that worth it for you?

Equeco

I've already confronted my manager and he admitted that what he did is wrong. I can't get at the same pay grade that the other person because that mean reviewing pay grades for the whole.of my service, which won't happen. I've asked for a backdated pay rise (within my grade) . I think that what most people miss is that in the public sector you work within grades. No matter how awesome I could be, tjyw can never ever pay me above the pay grade for.my role, unless they did something dodgy. Also, imagine that if people could eep their pay grade if they took a secondment for a lower paid job, then I could become head of the council and then apply for a secondment as traffic warden (for.rhe sake of example) and enjoy a 100k salary doing very little. Plus, had the council advertised the job indicating that anyonwonw in a higher role could apply and their salary kept, then other people may have applied as well. The person in question is rubbish. The other team wanted to get rid.of her and didn't quite know why, so when our job came up they thought it was a good way out. Now they've proved (as expected) rubbish in this role as well so we're giving them the boot. This is not a matter of different pay within the pay scale. This was about them being paid on a higher paygrade altogether....

hyubh

Equeco wrote: »

I think that what most people miss is that in the public sector you work within grades.

People aren't missing that, you're missing the concept of protected pay, which is also a very public sector-y thing...

No matter how awesome I could be, tjyw can never ever pay me above the pay grade for.my role, unless they did something dodgy.

At the risk of sounding pedantic, bonuses, 'market supplements', etc., are still possible even in a LA context...

Also, imagine that if people could eep their pay grade if they took a secondment for a lower paid job, then I could become head of the council and then apply for a secondment as traffic warden (for the sake of example) and enjoy a 100k salary doing very little.

Far fetched indeed, but on what aspect? As an analogy, the department paying the bulk of the 100K salary here isn't the one where the parking team sits, but the one where chief exec role sits. However, devoting a notable element of the staffing budget to getting someone senior out isn't, in itself, unusual - early retirement packages fit exactly that description. The absurdity here is purely in the idea of a chief exec being 'seconded' as traffic warden - the chief exec applying in the first place is implausible, likewise the parking team then hiring them. A manager at one grade above the advertised one applying to move between different back office departments however? Not so implausible.

Plus, had the council advertised the job indicating that anyonwonw in a higher role could apply and their salary kept, then other people may have applied as well.

Surely the question of their grade being maintained only arose once no better candidate had applied...? It wasn't making use of general 'apply internally for a lower-grade job, keep your current grade' rule, but something mainly intended for smoothing internal restructuring, or indeed successful equal pay claims. My guess would be it got in under the former.

Ozzuk

As a manager you should have a better grasp on this - you need to look at TELLIT01's post again for the correct position.

It is also probably not that hard to identify you from your posts, so I'd be careful about running another colleague down in case someone in your team/LA reads this...