'Thank you' pay rises for Walsall Council staff
Hard-working council staff in Walsall are getting pay rises as a thank you for their efforts during the Covid pandemic.
Bosses said all staff directly employed by the authority will get a one per cent increase in salaries from April 1, with just over £1 million set aside in the budget to cover the costs.
At a personnel committee meeting on Monday, council leader Mike Bird said the increase would mean the reinstatement of a rise not awarded by the previous administration in 2017.
He added it wasn’t backdated and did not include education staff who were directly employed by schools under the academy status.
The move follows a decision to increase councillor allowances, as part of this budget strategy for the coming year.
For many workers the increase, which has been backed by the unions, will mean hundreds of extra pounds in their annual salaries.
The lowest G1 pay grade will go up from £17,665 to 17,842 while the highest G16 grade will rise to £80,824 from £80,024. Those on the middle G8 pay grade level of £32,585 will be given an increase of £325.
Councillor Bird said: “I do believe the time has come where we need to acknowledge not only the work that members have done – hence the increase in members allowance – but also the staff for the efforts they have put in.
Grateful
“It has been extremely difficult and continues to be so to work from home. It isn’t as easy as people would think. I think initially it was 'Oh great, I haven’t got to go out this morning'. But sadly it has now changed.
“I’m grateful to see the unions are in support of this. It does not have any back-pay element and is repatriating the one per cent taken away some years ago. We’re rectifying that.”
Deputy leader Adrian Andrew added: “We’ve seen the resilience of the staff on the council. Many of them have stopped doing their day job and have turned their hand to doing other things.”
Walsall Labour group leader Aftab Nawaz said: “During this real hard time, we’ve seen our staff go far above and beyond what they’ve done before.
“They sometimes aren’t given the recognition that they should be by the public.
“Our staff do a magnificent job and should be recognised and this is one way of recognising them. Another way is making sure we stand up for them when people criticise ‘the council’.
“When they criticise ‘the council’, they don’t just criticise the politicians but also our members of staff.
“Officers advise and we make decisions so we should take the criticism and not them. They are there to do their jobs and we should always support them.
“There has been some real hard work by our staff, particularly where they have looked after the most vulnerable. To know our officers are there to help them, gives me a lot of pride.”
