Cornwall Council and unions produce proposed collective agreement for pay and terms and conditions for staff

Formal negotiations with the trade unions about pay and terms and conditions for Cornwall Council employees have concluded this week, with an agreement over a set of proposals which will now be put to staff who are members of trade unions for their views as part of a union ballot process.

Reductions in Government funding means that the Council needs to make savings of around £190m over the next five years. A re organisation of the Council’s management structure began earlier this year, with the previous six directorates now reduced to three, delivering initial savings of around £400,000.

The proposed Collective Agreement 2014 relates to the Council’s directly employed staff, including Corporate Directors and the Chief Executive.

The main items in the proposed Collective Agreement are:

• Implementation of the Living Wage from 1 April 2015 (currently £7.65 per hour which equates to an annual minimum salary of £14,758 for a full time employee).
• Commitment to the payment of national annual pay awards until September 2017 (expected to be at least 1% for 2014).
• Deferral of the implementation of contribution related pay (CRP) for 3 years until October 2017.
• Commitment to retain national terms and conditions including sick pay until September 2017.
• Retain the existing severance policy (redundancy payments) until September 2017.
• Retain the existing pay protection policy (2 years pay protection) until September 2017.

Together with the reductions in pay that were previously agreed for the new chief executive and corporate directors, this marks a significant reduction in inequality in pay scales across the organisation. In 2009, the chief executive earned 17 times the wage of the lowest paid worker; in 2015, the chief executive will earn just over 11 times the lowest waged employee.

UPDATE 23 May 2014

The Council has announced that the ballot staff resulted in a majority supporting the deal proposed by the Council and the unions.

May 2014