We've experienced significant difficulties recruiting and retaining qualified and skilled staff, which is impacting on services provided across the council. In some services, the inability to recruit to certain roles has resulted in services placing a reliance on agency staff, which is more expensive and therefore unsustainable.

Full council agreed on 17 May 2018 to amend the pay and reward policy for the council, which would reinstate the NJC rates of pay from 1 October 2018, and senior posts would be subject to a job evaluation scheme to consider appropriate levels of senior pay which are comparable to other local authorities.

The cost of implementing the amended pay policy in 2018/19 delivers a part-year financial impact of £2.07m. This is an additional budgetary pressure, and additional savings proposals have been proposed in order to fund this cost.

Proposed savings of £1.29m within corporate budgets and public health have been identified to fund this cost, and details of the savings proposed can be found at Appendix 1.

In addition to this, the remaining £0.78m has been identified within existing earmarked reserves as no longer required, and so it's proposed that these reserves are released to fund the pay policy. Details of the reserve balances no longer required are detailed at Appendix 2. As this funding will only be available for one financial year, alternative base budget savings will be identified for the 2019/20 budget year. These savings proposals will be considered alongside the 2019/10 budget strategy, and consulted on later in the financial year.

Please take a few minutes to find out more about our proposed savings, and let us know what you think by clicking the 'How to get involved' tab further up this page.

The results of the consultation will be presented to council and help inform councillors when they consider the latest financial strategy report on 13 December 2018.

Documents

• Appendix 1 - 2018-19 Additional Savings Proposals.pdf
• Appendix 2 - Earmarked Reserves to be Released.pdf