Wiltshire council has delayed a decision to change unsocial hours payments for staff, after emergency duty social workers warned their annual earnings could dwindle by £7,000 as a result.
The authority hopes to save £10m on staffing over the next two years, with £2.1m coming from proposed changes to unsocial hours, overtime, standby and callout allowances as well as a temporary freeze on pay increments.
It plans to scrap a pay uplift of up to 20% that staff such as emergency duty team (EDT) social workers receive for working unsocial hours.
The council has proposed to introduce an increase of up to 33% in workers’ hourly pay rate between 10pm and 6am. But EDT staff have said only two of these hours will apply to them as they are ‘on call’ after midnight and are not paid an hourly rate.
Unions have warned that full-time staff, including EDT social workers, could lose up to £7,000 a year if the changes are brought in.
In its budget report for 2022-23, the council said it aimed to agree the proposed changes with trade unions by 1 April, but this deadline has now been pushed back after concerns were raised by frontline workers.
Consultations with frontline social workers around unsocial hours, overtime, standby and callout allowances will now continue until June, with the freeze on pay increments negotiated separately.
GMB and UNISON, which both represent EDT social workers at Wilshire council, are against the proposed changes to unsocial hours payments and are arguing that the council should scrap them.
Unions: ‘changes are not something anyone wants to see’
The council approved its pay policy statement for 2022-23 last week, but will allow amendments to unsocial hours, overtime and standby and callout allowances to be made after negotiations with unions are finalised.“Unsocial hours, overtime, and standby and callout allowances are currently subject to negotiation with trade unions on changes to these allowances to ensure that they support new ways of working and service delivery,” its pay policy report said.
“Once agreement on these changes has been reached, the pay policy statement will be updated to reflect the changes.”
John Drake, regional officer at UNISON, said the extension to negotiations until June offered some “reprieve” and welcomed the separation of discussions on a freeze to increments, which he said was a less contentious proposal.
He said the “best case scenario” would be for the council to scrap planned changes to unsocial hours, overtime and standby and callout allowances altogether. Drake described the changes as “not something anyone wants to see, particularly in the current climate”.
“We'll be involved in the working groups and if it doesn't look like it is going to achieve anything, then we'll have a view and take action accordingly,” he said.
Meanwhile, Andy Newman, GMB’s Wiltshire and Swindon branch secretary, said his union was consulting staff on the council’s proposals and that it would “not recommend to our members that they accept a pay cut”.
