Fife Council Update (03/09/15)

I said in a recent update that I expected the situation in Fife Council to show some similarities to the way that equal pay and job evaluation were dealt with in both North and South Lanarkshire Councils. 

Where, in effect, most of the traditional women's jobs landed on the equal pay equivalent of a 'snake' whereas most traditional male jobs landed on a 'ladder'.

So I plan to re-publish some of these Lanarkshire posts from the blog site archive which may help readers in Fife get up to speed as we approach a four week long tribunal hearing of the Fife Council equal pay cases.

The Fife cases are is scheduled to take place between 6 October and 2 November in Dundee and, as in all tribunals hearings, A4ES claimants are entitled to attend. 

Snakes and Ladders (23/06/14)

North Lanarkshire Council has responded to my recent Freedom of Information (FoI) request by providing the following details on the hourly rates of traditional male council jobs.

Now these jobs were all in receipt of 'bonuses' worth up to 60% of basic pay, but these extra payments were never extended to women's jobs despite the Council's obligations under equality legislation and the requirements of the 1999 Single Status (Equal Pay) Agreement.

In addition, the declared pay scale of these jobs may not reflect accurately what the men were actually paid compared to the women because 'pay protection' may have resulted in the men being paid above the official pay scale.

Another practice which is gradually coming to light is that the male jobs all seem to have been assimilated at the top of the pay scale while the women's jobs went to the bottom of the scale. 

In a bizarre version of snakes and ladders, but one in which only the women's jobs landing on the pay equivalent of a snake.

What's amazing is that before the Council's introduced a new Job Evaluation Scheme (JES) in 2006 a Home Support Worker was on a higher old grade (Manual Worker Grade 5) than all of the male jobs on the list. 

I wonder what odds you would get on that?

Job Title	Minimum Hourly Rate	Maximum Hourly Rate
Road Sweeper Grade - NLC02	£6.8341	£8.3967
Refuse Collector Grade - NLC03	£7.2923	£9.1269
Gardener 1 Grade - NLC04	£8.6093	£9.7269
Gardener 2 Grade – NLC04	£8.6093	£9.7269
Gardener 3 Grade – NLC05	£8.9637	£10.2330
Refuse Driver/Gravedigger/ Gardener 4/Driver 2 Grade – NLC06	£9.5440	£11.0769
Driver 1 Grade – NLC04	£8.6093	£9.7269
Labourer/Store man Grade – NLC 02	£6.8341	£8.3967