Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Stef Bristow, Billy Brookes, Jimmy Brookes, Richard Cunnington, Colin Davie, Sid Dennis, Sarah Devereux, Stephen Evans, Steve McMillan, Ellie Marsh and Paul Rickett.

At this point in the Meeting, Members were invited to declare any relevant interests.  None were received.

To consider an updated Pay Policy Statement for 2023/24 and proposed Pay Policy Statement for 2024/25 for East Lindsey District Council as required under Part 1, Chapter 8 (Section 38) of the Localism Act 2011.

A report was submitted by the Leader of the Council and Portfolio Holder for Corporate Affairs detailing the proposed Updated Pay Policy Statement for 2023/2024 and Pay Policy Statement for 2024/2025, pages 1 to 28 of the Supplementary Agenda refer.

The report highlighted that under section 38 of the Localism Act 2011, a Pay Policy Statement was required to be produced annually and must be approved by Council.  This had been a requirement since 2012/13.  The Pay Policy Statement, once approved, must be published on the Council’s website by 31 March 2024.  This report presented an updated Pay Policy Statement for 2023/2024 (Appendix A) and the policy for 2024/2025 (Appendix B).

In addition, it was noted that the policy statement covered three central areas:

• The remuneration of the Chief Officers
• The remuneration of the lowest paid employees
• The relationship between Chief Officers remuneration and that of other officers

The Leader of the Council advised Members that ordinarily this statement would be included with the budget papers, however this year time had been taken to reflect best practice and to ensure that the updates through the year had been included.  The ongoing Partnership alignment of terms and conditions had necessitated more updates than would ordinarily be expected and it was expected that this would continue through 2024/25.  It was also highlighted that it would be helpful to proceed with a much-needed constitutional review across the Partnership that had been recommended by peers and scrutiny, to assist this work.

Following which it was Proposed and Seconded,

That Council considered the updated Pay Policy Statement for 2023/2024 and Pay Policy Statement for 2024/2025:

Members were invited to put their comments and questions forward.

A Member queried whether the appraisal system used across the Partnership was in written form and whether it was linked to any targets/increases in salary.  It was further queried whether there were clear job descriptions for employees to enable them to be appraised accurately and whether information and documents from the appraisals were shared with the staff.

In response, the Leader of the Council stated that the pay policy statement was such a prescribed area of the Council’s work in terms of pay policy employment law that he was unable to give an accurate answer, however was happy to provide an answer in detail after taking advice from the Legal Manager and Chief Executive after the Meeting.

The Chief Executive advised Members that the Council operated an appraisal system and referred Members to the Annual Delivery Plan that ran alongside the budget recently approved.  One of the areas that people’s performance was assessed against was whether they were delivering on those tasks that had been supported by Council.  It was highlighted that as there were teams of people, it was not always possible for a person to deliver an outcome on their own so this would be linked to a team target rather than a personal development target.

Other than the changes to senior officers’ pay, there were no financial  ...  view the full minutes text for item 101.

The programmed date for the next Meeting of the Council was noted as the Council Annual Meeting on Wednesday 22nd May 2024 at 6.30pm.

The programmed date for the next Meeting of the Council was confirmed as the AGM on Wednesday 22 May 2024, commencing at 6.30pm.