To receive any announcements from the Leader of the Council.
Minutes:
The Leader made a statement to Council, as follows:-
International Women’s Day
‘As many of you know, tomorrow is International Women’s Day. This day marks not only achievements and progress of women worldwide but also services as a pointed reminder of the road ahead in pursuing gender equality.
As Leader of the Council I wanted to address you ahead of this significant day. Gender equality is not merely a matter of social justice, it’s a foundation upon which a fair, inclusive and prosperous society is built. Our commitment to gender equality reflects our dedication to upholding the principles of equality, equity and justice for all members of our community.
Throughout history, women have been the backbone of society’s pioneering change and driving progress. Despite this the struggle for equal rights, opportunities and representation persists. As a father to Michaela and Holly my two daughters, and a beautiful granddaughter Ruby, it has always been important for me to instil an attitude that just because you are a girl, you can’t or shouldn’t do something. I have always encouraged them to feel no limitations to what is possible. They have grown up to be inspiring, intelligent and amazing young ladies of which I am incredibly proud, and I am sure so will Ruby as she journeys on into her life.
Tomorrow provides the opportunity to mark progress in breaking down the barriers that hinder women’s full participation in all aspects of public life. I am proud that North Northamptonshire Council welcomed its first female chair of the Council last year. I am also proud that the Council appointed its first female Chief Executive earlier this year. It’s also worth noting that they are joined at the top table by Councillor Lora Lawman, our vice-chair, and Sanjit Sull, our monitoring officer, and Kamila Coulson-Patel, our deputy monitoring officer.
This year’s International Women’s Day theme is Inspire Inclusion and I am sure everyone in this room and colleagues throughout North Northamptonshire Council will agree that greater female representation at all levels of local government is both good and right.
So as we mark International Women’s Day tomorrow, this Council can continue its splendid work in inspiring future generations of inclusion through our policies, debate and action. Together we can forge women’s equity, celebrate women’s achievements, raise awareness about discrimination and take action to drive gender equivalence.
International Women’s Day belongs to everyone everywhere in pursuit of equity, every day, thank you.
Former Lord Lieutenant David Lang, CBE
I also wanted to take a few moments to say a few words about the former Lord Lieutenant of Northamptonshire David Lang who has sadly passed away. Mr Lang served as the Lord Lieutenant from 2014 to 2020 and many of you will know that he was recently acknowledged in the 2024 New Year’s honours List where he was awarded the CBE by Her Royal Highness Princess Anne for his services to charity and philanthropy.
Without any doubt Mr Lang significantly and positively impacted the local area. He worked to support a wide array of charities and voluntary organisations and did a tremendous amount of work to help promote enterprise and business in the area too. He played a vital role in establishing the Northamptonshire Community Foundation which has issued over £20m in grants to causes across the area. He also served as the County’s High Sherriff and was Pro-Chancellor at the University of Northampton.
Mr Lane will be remembered at a private family service, but I understand there will be a public memorial service to be held later this year to celebrate his life. I propose that we hold a minute’s silence as a mark of respect to David Lang, a remarkable person who was a force for good in the area and who will sadly be missed.
[Members, officers and the public stood in silent tribute to David Lang.]
Officer Terms and Conditions
Chair, I do have one further announcement to make. Members will recall that we agreed our new terms and conditions back in August 2023. This was a fantastic achievement for this authority, and they were developed to support our ambitions of being an employer of choice. Those colleagues who have joined us since vesting day will have moved into new roles since April 2023, have had their jobs evaluated under the new scheme and are now moving onto NNC pay terms and conditions.
In addition, all new recruits are being appointed to our new pay arrangements and this is enabling us to attract talent that will help us drive this fantastic Council forward. However this has left us with feelings of inequality and unfairness from some of our employees who transferred in to NNC on their previous employers’ terms and conditions.
To give an example, our social workers who are on TUPE protected County Council terms and conditions and who have given our Council and the previous County Council long service will now receive less pay in some cases and less favourable terms and conditions than a new social worker joining the organisation. That is because the NNC pay band for our social worker role is higher than it was at the County Council. The resulting pay differential is quite simply not fair. Why would you come to a job where you’re doing the same job and being paid less, it just doesn’t make sense.
The situation we are in is not of our own making. It is a hangover of the local government reform in Northamptonshire. But just because we did not create the inequalities it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fix them. We need to fix them, and we need to make sure everyone feels valued. We have always said that we would not be able to unilaterally move all employees to new pay terms and conditions but if we are truly to stick to our word of wanting to be an employer of choice and if we want to support our staff in the way that we say we do we can longer sustain differences that make some of our staff feel less valued than others.
We will therefore be offering every employee the opportunity to voluntarily move onto the new North Northamptonshire terms and conditions. This will give those employees who would receive preferential pay terms and conditions if they were to move on to our terms the opportunity to do so. This will enable more fairness and it will move us closer to the ‘one council’ approach that we are striving for. This will support our ambition to be an employer of choice.
Clearly a significant amount of work was undertaken to achieve the implementation of the pay and grading and this will also be a huge undertaking. We need to manage expectations regarding the timeline for staff, how and when we start this implementation and relevant details will be communicated to staff by officers.
This is a fantastic piece of work from officers and I hugely applaud them for that. It will make our Council so much fairer for all grades within the authority.
Thank you.