Local authority pay increase
Author
Discussion

matchmaker

Original Poster:

8,968 posts

223 months

Saturday 13th April 2019
quotequote all
Mrs M is a local authority worker - a cleaner so bottom of the pecking order, but she enjoys her job. It's part time (17.5 hours per week), but is a permanent position, salaried and with a good pension. She's been there for nearly 5 years.

The unions negotiated a pay rise with the employers of 3.5%, backdated to April 2018. Mrs was very excited when she heard this, and had plans to treat herself to some Lego with some of the arrears (she's a 52 year old big kid).

We downloaded her payslip and saw how much her backdated pay came to - £5.61. Although she is salaried rather than hourly paid her payslip shows the equivalent hourly rate. It has gone up by a staggering 1p per hour!

A stinging e-mail has been dispatched to HR but can any of the PH employment gurus think of a reason for such a pitiful increase? I'm hoping it is just human error...

Fastpedeller

4,232 posts

169 months

Saturday 13th April 2019
quotequote all
matchmaker said:
Mrs M is a local authority worker - a cleaner so bottom of the pecking order, but she enjoys her job. It's part time (17.5 hours per week), but is a permanent position, salaried and with a good pension. She's been there for nearly 5 years.

The unions negotiated a pay rise with the employers of 3.5%, backdated to April 2018. Mrs was very excited when she heard this, and had plans to treat herself to some Lego with some of the arrears (she's a 52 year old big kid).

We downloaded her payslip and saw how much her backdated pay came to - £5.61. Although she is salaried rather than hourly paid her payslip shows the equivalent hourly rate. It has gone up by a staggering 1p per hour!

A stinging e-mail has been dispatched to HR but can any of the PH employment gurus think of a reason for such a pitiful increase? I'm hoping it is just human error...
That does sound like an error. If she's on (say) £10 per hour that would give 35p an hour increase.

xx99xx

2,710 posts

96 months

Saturday 13th April 2019
quotequote all
Likewise, if she's on, for example, £15k a year, a 3.5% increase would be £525 which = £43.75/month. I'm sure you've already worked that out. Point being, the back dated pay for 11 months seems incorrect and worth challenging.

However, they may have caps on pay grades and if she's already at or above the cap, the pay rise may not be applicable.

Dinoboy

2,599 posts

240 months

Saturday 13th April 2019
quotequote all
If your in Scotland, the negotiated pay increase is payable at the end of April.

Even at minimum wage,a 3.5% backdated amount should be around £300.

Edited by Dinoboy on Saturday 13th April 19:45

matchmaker

Original Poster:

8,968 posts

223 months

Saturday 13th April 2019
quotequote all
Dinoboy said:
If your in Scotland, the negotiated pay increase is payable at the end of April.

Even at minimum wage,a 3.5% backdated amount should be around £300.

Edited by Dinoboy on Saturday 13th April 19:45
Yes, we're in Scotland.

Countdown

47,410 posts

219 months

Monday 15th April 2019
quotequote all
matchmaker said:
Mrs M is a local authority worker - a cleaner so bottom of the pecking order, but she enjoys her job. It's part time (17.5 hours per week), but is a permanent position, salaried and with a good pension. She's been there for nearly 5 years.

The unions negotiated a pay rise with the employers of 3.5%, backdated to April 2018. Mrs was very excited when she heard this, and had plans to treat herself to some Lego with some of the arrears (she's a 52 year old big kid).

We downloaded her payslip and saw how much her backdated pay came to - £5.61. Although she is salaried rather than hourly paid her payslip shows the equivalent hourly rate. It has gone up by a staggering 1p per hour!

A stinging e-mail has been dispatched to HR but can any of the PH employment gurus think of a reason for such a pitiful increase? I'm hoping it is just human error...
Human error. As a complete guess - Somebody's applied the "hourly increase" uplift to the "annual salary" figure embedded in the payroll system. So it thinks the "hourly increase" (eg 30pph) is the annual salary increase and then divided that by however many hours she works IYSWIM.

The odd thing is the hourly rate for each grade of staff tends to be a "global" figure and applies to everybody on that particular contract, so I would have expected all her colleagues to have had the same issue?