City Hall is reviewing its pay structure after concerns were raised that existing salary levels were making it harder to employ new staff in key subject areas. The existing pay structure is now 15 years old and City Hall HR chiefs say “a number of recruitment and retention concerns” have arisen in recent years.
A briefing note warns that “We appear to be having much more difficulty attracting candidates to our vacancies than we have in the past. Anecdotal intelligence indicates that people sometimes do not apply because of the salary levels offered.”
The document highlights “particularly acute” challenges in hiring staff in housing, digital, and data sciences due to the inability to match salaries offered by both the private and public sectors.
In order to fill positions, the document says managers are “now making many more appointments above the bottom of the pay band” either to match existing salary levels or “because the salary at the bottom of the scale is simply uncompetitive.”
As a result new staff are reaching the top end of the pay structure earlier while others “come in straight at the top,” both of which HR bosses say make it harder to retain staff while trade union Unison has raised concerns some staff have been left “at the top of the scale for many years” without the possibility of achieving further pay increases.
Mayor Sadiq Khan and the London Assembly have sanctioned the review which is expected to report its findings this Summer.
