Agenda and draft minutes

Apologies for absence are noted above.

Members of the Employment Panel are asked whether they have an interest in any of the matters on the agenda and, if so, to formally declare that interest.

There were no declarations of interest made at the meeting.

Report from Councillor Rafiq, Cabinet Member for HR & Corporate Affairs attached.

The HR Business Manager presented a report setting out details amendments to the Neonatal Care Leave Act which were due to take effect on 6 April 2025.

It was explained that the legislation introduces a new right for parents of babies admitted to neonatal care, within 28 days of the child’s birth, to take up to 12 weeks of leave up to the point a baby is 68 weeks old. This is in addition to existing maternity and paternity leave entitlements. The right also applies to certain specified others and is subject to a number of criteria.

The leave is available from day one of employment.

The new legislation also grants redundancy protections for anyone who takes neonatal care leave for 6 consecutive weeks in the same way as such protections already exist for other types of parental leave.

To reflect these changes a new section (Section 12) of the Council’s Family Leave Policy has been drafted for approval (Appendix A) Minor amendments to the Authority’s Redundancy Policy are also required with the revised section of the Policy (Section 4) included at Appendix B of the report.

The Council’s Family Leave Policy Equality Impact Assessment has been reviewed to consider this change and was attached at Appendix C.

It was explained that subject to the approval of the Employment Panel the revised policies will go forward to the Corporate Joint Consultative Committee before being published on the ointranet and communicated to staff.

It was agreed:

1.    That the amendment to the Council’s Family Leave policy to incorporate Neonatal Leave provisions to reflect the update in employment regulations be approved.

2.    That the amendment to the Council’s Redundancy Policy to reflect the new redundancy protections for those accessing Neonatal Leave be approved.

Director of People and Inclusion will report at the meeting.

The Director of People and Inclusion presented a report setting out the Chief Officer Job Evaluation Arrangements, proposals to regrade the post of Director of Regeneration and Project Delivery, and the proposal to extend the Market Rate payment to the post of Director of Adult Social Care and Community Commissioning for a further two years and increase the rate payable to £20k.

Chief Officer Job Evaluation Arrangements

It was explained that the Council currently employs around 40 officers employed on JNC Chief Officer Terms and Conditions.

Posts at this level are currently graded across 8 different pay bands (Bands A to H) with rates of remuneration ranging from £63,000 to £142,543.

In 2023 Bury moved from evaluating these roles using the Hay job evaluation scheme to the Local Government Association (LGA) scheme. This was a technical change which meant future evaluations could be undertaken in-house and in a more cost-effective way and did not practically affect the pay or grading of any post holders.

Whilst the current Chief Officer pay structure consistent of 8 pay bands, evaluated roles are only currently established in 6 bands with this reducing to 5 in the coming months following changes already agreed and subject to the recommendations set out in this report.

To simplify the Council’s senior pay and grading arrangements and make this more transparent the proposal is to formalise a Chief Officer pay structure with 5 as bands with each band supported by a consistent job description and job title going forward.

A list of current Chief Officer posts by grade was attached as Appendix A.

The detail of the current and proposed new structure was appended to the report (Appendix B).

The Director of Regeneration and Project Delivery

It was explained that the post was established in July 2024 following a review of the former Assistant Director (Regeneration Delivery) post and is currently evaluated at Chief Officer Band E (£95,440- £104,135).

As part of the recently agreed corporate restructure the post will gain responsibility for the Council’s Facilities Management Service from April.

The scope and scale of the increased responsibility is to take on leadership responsibility for the creation of a full Corporate Landlord model, a key priority as highlighted in the Council’s Improvement Plan.

Following a review of the role’s evaluation and inclusion of these additional areas of responsibility the proposal is to re-grade this post to Chief Officer Band F (£106,361- £115,452).

Director of Adult Social Care & Community Commissioning

The role is the Council’s Statutory Director of Adult Social Services (DASS) and is graded at Chief Officer Band F (£106,361-£115,452), in recognition of the challenging market in this area and criticality of retaining the current postholder in the context of the changing legislative and regulatory framework for Adult Social Care, a Market Rate of £14K was agreed and applied to this role in July 2023.

In accordance with the Council’s Market Rate’s Policy such payments are agreed for a maximum of two years, subject to review. This arrangement has  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

There was no urgent business.