Reigate & Banstead Borough Council responds to Unison undertaking a ballot for industrial action

A council spokesperson said: “We are disappointed that we have been unable to reach an agreement on our pay award and that Unison is taking this action, and hope that strike action can be avoided. Despite Unison’s claims, we continue to remain open to discussions with them.”

Cllr Mark Brunt, Council Leader, said: “We are grateful to our staff for their hard work in challenging circumstances to ensure that we continue to support our residents and deliver high quality services. We are conscious of the increased cost of living that they and their families are experiencing, and want to support our staff, however we only have a finite budget from which we can offer a pay award. This is a national cost of living crisis, and increased costs and inflation are impacting the Council’s budgets as well as those of households.

“In addition to a salary increase, a £200 one-off payment was paid in April this year in recognition of the rise in living costs and targeted at those staff most likely to be adversely affected by those financial pressures.

“We believe our offer is fair and reasonable given the unprecedented financial challenges we are facing. First and foremost, we have a responsibility to proactively manage our finances to ensure the future financial sustainability of the Council, so that we can continue to protect our services and deliver the high standards our residents expect.

“We would like to reassure residents that we are putting in place plans to ensure that we can continue to deliver the essential services on which they rely should strike action be declared and go ahead.”

The 2022/23 pay award

The details of the award are:

- a 1.3% consolidated pay increase across all pay scales/scale points effective 1 April 2022

an additional £200 one-off payment (paid 21 April 2022) in recognition of the increased expenditure people are facing, to staff in all operative, admin, and lower graded technical, professional and manager roles

- the ongoing commitment to pay the real living wage as a minimum to all staff, which has increased to £9.90 per hour (from £9.50 per hour).

The award was made in the context of:

- £1.3 million ongoing income budget pressures in 2022/23, including parking income losses of £1.1 million, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic

- £120k reduction in Government grants, plus a further £110k in funding cuts from the DWP (Department for Work and Pensions)

increased borrowing costs to fund our capital investments

- a £250k increase in employer’s National Insurance contributions

- a need to invest in some services, such as new Waste & Recycling crew and ICT infrastructure

- budget cuts and savings to balance the budget – including cuts to Management Team budgets, town improvement funding and community grants.

The Council’s pay award for 2022/23 is on top of cumulative increases given in the previous five years (2017/18 to 2021/22) totalling 10.13% and additional one-off payments, such as £250 during the height of the Covid pandemic, to recognise the challenging situation.

The Award is within the Council’s 2022/23 budget that was agreed at Full Council on February 10.