Pay rise for Rother council staff is backed

On Wednesday (August 31), Rother District Council’s licensing and general discussed the authority’s annual pay award for staff, ahead of an upcoming full council meeting where the final decision will be taken.

Despite divided views, the committee ultimately backed adoption of a figure in line with the national pay offer, which would see all council staff receive a £1,925 pay rise backdated to April 1 2022. While much more substantial than some of the alternatives discussed, it would still amount to a real terms pay cut.

However, councillors also heard that such an offer would result in a £355,000 funding shortfall in the council’s Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) — a plan which already relies on the council taking money out of reserves.

While the decision was narrowly supported, the prospect of meeting the national pay offer clearly worried some committee members due to the need to find additional funding.

“That is the choice isn’t it,” said Cllr Hazel Timpe (Ind). “Cut services, cut staff to give a fair pay rise as you are talking about. The reality is something has got to give.”

Cllr Elenor Kirby-Green (Con) said: “It is not that we don’t want to give staff a [pay] increase, but you can’t make up money from nowhere. You can’t possibly give salary increases if there is not the money to do it.

“If it means we are going to cut jobs; where are we going to cut jobs? I think everyone is in agreement that we have cut so much, we are working to the bare minimum as it is.”

Those arguing against the national pay offer were largely in support of an alternative proposal, which would see a one-off pay increase of £500 plus a one per cent pay point increase. Even this far more modest pay rise would result in an £85,000 funding shortfall, councillors heard.

Other committee members felt this would be an insufficient pay rise, however.

Cllr Richard Thomas (Lib Dem) said: “We would be saying to our workers, ‘the government has put us in an impossible position and we want you to bear the brunt of it’. So the reason I am saying we should go for the national offer is that it spreads the pain.

“It spreads the pain between the services and the people who work for us. It spreads it. We won’t be by ourselves because it is a national offer. This is the national position.”

He added: “I also think if we don’t go for it we will be faced with a strike. We will be faced with a lot of very bad feeling amongst the people who work for the council, we may well have recruitment difficulties and that wouldn’t help the people we want to help either.”

Ultimately, the committee narrowly voted to support a pay increase in line with the national offer. It came down to a casting vote by the committee’s chairman, Labour councillor Sam Coleman.

A final decision will be taken following a full council debate in the coming weeks.