DERBY City Council is to spend a further £1.2million on consultancy fees in an effort to end to its controversial pay review saga, which stretches back to 2010.
Last year, at least 600 city council workers were told their basic income would be reduced as part of work to make pay fairer – a challenge all councils are facing.
Another 2,000 staff were told their pay would go up, while 800 would see no change.
The council also revised terms and conditions, resulting in overtime being reduced from time-and-a-half to time-and-a-quarter.
The changes led to more than 1,100 staff wanting to launch appeals. But many could not as the authority would not provide details of how their jobs were assessed. The council said this was due to a "contractual issue", which the Derby Telegraph understands was between the council and the consultancy firm Aquarius.
Today (Wednesday), the council announced it had appointed a new consultancy firm, Hay Group, to take over the pay review project – and complete it. Its first task will be to review some of the pay changes announced last year.
Adam Wilkinson, chief executive at the council, said the review would cover around a third of the staff whose new basic pay details were announced last year. This equates to 1,235 employees across 640 job roles.
He added any appeals relating to these staff would be suspended pending the outcome of the review.
The finalised equal pay figures announced last year covered non-school staff. Hay Group will also carry out pay reviews for 2,901 non-teaching employees in Derby schools.
Mr Wilkinson said: "The review may lead to changes to pay grades, or it may not. The biggest positive is once the review has been concluded and the schools part is complete, we will be in a position to release any changes. If any individuals then want to appeal, we can provide them with the all documentation that would allow for that appeal."
Mr Wilkinson said the review will take "four to six months".
He said: "The original job evaluation scheme led to circa 60% of staff being better off, 20% nothing changing and 20% worse off.
"These percentages might change as a result of the review. We won't know until Hay Group completes it."
A council spokesman confirmed the £1.2 million being paid to Hay Group is on top of the money already spent on consultancy fees since 2010, which was at least £1.4 million.
Mr Wilkinson said the council had money set aside to cover the cost. He said: "We have financial provision to complete the job evaluation project. The majority of the £1.2 million will be funded by the council's job evaluation reserve pot."
Asked why Hay Group was only being drafted in now, Mr Wilkinson said: "The contract [with Aquarius] came to an end and we were at the point where we needed a new contractor to see this through to the end.
"The previous consultants aren't able to satisfy the full contract. They cannot complete the schools part of the project and provide us with the necessary training we require [to implement changes].
"We also reached the point where we could not continue because we couldn't give information to staff to enable them to appeal."
The Hay Group contract will start on October 1.
