Sheffield City Council is not in the territory of going bankrupt despite looming compensation payouts following concerns regarding equal pay, leader Tom Hunt has said.
Councillor Hunt denied the authority was anywhere near going bankrupt during an interview with The Star and added the council should be able to manage the costs of rectifying disparities in salaries.
The interview comes after the council announced a two-year “job evaluation process” for all its employees.
Concerns about equal pay related to the current job evaluation scheme were raised by the GMB trade union in autumn 2023.
The GMB, one of three main unions representing council staff, launched an equal pay claim a year ago, saying that thousands of women could be losing out on up to £11,000 a year.
Coun Hunt said it would be wrong to “speculate” on any potential cuts to services or redundancies when asked by The Star, but did confirm there would be a compensation scheme for staff identified to have been underpaid.
After the GMB raised the concerns, Grant Thornton conducted an external, independent review into Sheffield Council’s equal pay scheme, its processes and its data, in order to identify where changes should be made.
The review is reported to have found there were no issues wiht the GLPC job evaluation scheme the authority was using, but it identified the way Sheffield City Council had implemented the scheme may have led to disparities in job evaluation.
Some sets of jobs were grouped into 'job families', rather than each role being assessed separately, which is what will happen from now on.
The council has stressed that men and women doing the same job are paid the same as each other.
Councillor Hunt denied the authority was anywhere near going bankrupt during an interview with The Star and added the council should be able to manage the costs of rectifying disparities in salaries.
The interview comes after the council announced a two-year “job evaluation process” for all its employees.
Concerns about equal pay related to the current job evaluation scheme were raised by the GMB trade union in autumn 2023.
The GMB, one of three main unions representing council staff, launched an equal pay claim a year ago, saying that thousands of women could be losing out on up to £11,000 a year.
Coun Hunt said it would be wrong to “speculate” on any potential cuts to services or redundancies when asked by The Star, but did confirm there would be a compensation scheme for staff identified to have been underpaid.
After the GMB raised the concerns, Grant Thornton conducted an external, independent review into Sheffield Council’s equal pay scheme, its processes and its data, in order to identify where changes should be made.
The review is reported to have found there were no issues wiht the GLPC job evaluation scheme the authority was using, but it identified the way Sheffield City Council had implemented the scheme may have led to disparities in job evaluation.
Some sets of jobs were grouped into 'job families', rather than each role being assessed separately, which is what will happen from now on.
The council has stressed that men and women doing the same job are paid the same as each other.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Those concerns that unions raised a year ago were about gender pay gaps, weren't they?
00:05About women being paid less than men for similar jobs?
00:08They were the concerns that were raised and so we took those concerns very seriously
00:13and did a full review and we found that there may be some anomalies across the organisation.
00:19This is not a systemic issue but what's crucial is that when we identified that there may be
00:25some problems, we are now putting steps in place to make sure that we implement a
00:30new job evaluation scheme to put in place a fair system for everyone in the council.
00:36So in changing the system in which these jobs are granted for that,
00:40is this not the council kind of accepting that there was
00:43a problem with the fairness of the salaries it was paying?
00:47Well look, we wouldn't be having this conversation if we didn't recognise that there is a problem
00:52that we are now committed to put right and that's what we will now do.
00:58We've already got to a place with the trade unions where we've agreed a new job evaluation
01:02scheme and when other organisations, other employers have had similar concerns raised,
01:08they've often taken a very long time to implement a new job evaluation scheme or
01:14agree what the next steps would be. Through the really close co-operative working with
01:19unions over the last few months, we're now in a place today where we've been able to talk
01:25confidently to all of our staff about what this means over the next couple of years as we review
01:31all of the roles in the council and that is all of the roles.
01:35We've got over 8,500 staff plus 2,000 support staff in school so it's a big endeavour and it's
01:42right that we are up front with our staff but crucially, having identified a problem,
01:47we talk to them about the solution and how we're going to work with them to put this right.
01:51Will the council be able to afford it though? It's well publicised by the local
01:55reporting service that finances aren't difficult in Sheffield as they are in
01:59local authorities across the country. Can the Sheffield City Council afford to rectify this?
02:03Yes, we're confident that we will be able to meet the requirements of the role review
02:07programme but until that work is completed over the next few years, we won't be able to
02:13have a full figure at this stage but I am committed to maintaining our commitment to
02:19openness and honesty around this and so I'm very happy to talk to you as the cost becomes more
02:27apparent but the key thing is we're taking the steps to put this right.
02:31So we're not going to have any service cuts or abundancies in order to make this right?
02:35No and it would be wrong to speculate on any of that at the minute. We're not in the same
02:39situation that other councils have found themselves in, crucially because we've been
02:44working really closely with trade unions throughout this process to get us to this point
02:49but the work now will be done over the next couple of years and I'm committed to continuing
02:54to talk to you about what that cost will be but what will be absolutely steadfast is our
03:01commitment to making sure that we provide great services for the people of this city
03:05and we continue to meet the ambitions of this city.
03:08And so staff that have been identified to have been underpaid or not paid, you know,
03:13in the right level, will that pay be backdated? Will I be able to claim backdated pay of what
03:17they should have earned?
03:18There will be compensation that will be part of this but at this stage we need to do the work
03:24to identify where those disparities in the job evaluation system exist before we can have any
03:32further conversations around that but the work following today's announcement now is underway.
03:37But I guess what my next question is, you know, if we are talking about potential
03:42backdating and compensation for miss pay, you know, I think one of the figures that
03:46the unions were using at the time is that it's up to 11 grand a year that some of these
03:50disparities were, you know, and that's one, if one person has that gap that's 66 grand in
03:55compensation because I believe legally they claim 66.
03:58We don't believe that anyone will be in the situation of the kinds of figures that you're
04:02talking about but it's really important that we don't speculate at this stage about what
04:07the costs could be for the overall authority or for individuals concerned because, you know,
04:14I'm really proud that there are 8,500 people here who every day do fantastic work serving
04:19the people of this city and it's right that we treat them with respect and do this work
04:24in a proper thorough way so that when there's information to share with them first they're
04:29the ones who get that information first because it's about their jobs, their livelihoods but
04:35we will continue to have full open transparency with the people of Sheffield as well.
04:40And definitely no chance you can rule out the council going bankrupt?
04:44We're absolutely not in that territory.
04:47We are managing our budgets prudently and responsibly.
04:50You know as well as I do that over the last 14 years this council has taken an absolute
04:55hammering.
04:56Councils up and down the country have but throughout that 14 years we've always managed
05:02our budgets responsibly to continue to provide services for the people of the city so I can
05:07absolutely say we are not in that territory.