2025 to 2026
Brighton & Hove City Council wants to ensure that the city and its residents receive high-quality services and excellent value for money.
In the context of the significant budget challenges that we face, pay levels need to be set at a level that will enable us to attract and retain high-caliber individuals while remaining prudent in its use of public funds.
To achieve this, we require a workforce:
We depend on a high-calibre senior management team that can provide leadership and work in close partnership with other private, public, and voluntary agencies across the city.
The senior team need to work with partners to:
At the same time, they need to be able to lead change programmes and reduce costs to deliver better outcomes for customers.
An innovative, skilled, and experienced workforce is vital to delivering our vision, and this is at the heart of our pay policy. This principle applies to all employees, from the lowest to the highest paid.
Whilst recognising the market rates for pay and seeking to attract the best talent, we seek to ensure that pay policies are based on fairness and equality and allow the workforce to live healthy and happy lives.
We have worked to address low pay and ensure that the pay gap between the highest and the lowest paid is appropriate and justified.
As of April 2024, our lowest pay point (£13.26) is:
Note - from 1 April 2025, the Real Living Wage is due to increase to £12.60, and the NLW is due to increase to £12.21. The pay multiple between the Chief Executive and the median earnings of the workforce is published annually on our website.
This document complies with our statutory responsibility to produce a pay policy statement annually pursuant to s38(1) of the Localism Act 2011. This policy statement requires approval by the full council.
We wish to ensure that local taxpayers are able to take an informed view on all aspects of our remuneration arrangement. The pay policy statement will be published on our website.
The statement applies to all council employees and ‘casual workers’, except:
For the purposes of the pay policy statement, the following definitions will apply.
Brighton & Hove City Council defines its lowest paid employees as those who are paid on the lowest spinal column point of its grading structure. This is spinal column point 7 and is applied to casual workers as well as employees. A full-time post is based on a 37-hour week.
Chief Officers, for the purpose of this legislation, are those who report to the Chief Executive and those who report to posts reporting to the Chief Executive, i.e. deputy chief officers (aside from support roles).
The publication of the ‘pay multiples’ provides a calculation in the form of a ratio between the median average earnings across the organization, and the highest paid employee and was recommended by the Hutton Report on Fair Pay.
With effect from 1 January 2025, the Corporate Leadership Team comprises the following posts:
Corporate Director City Operations
The Extended Corporate Leadership Team comprises members of the Corporate Leadership Team and Directors. View our management and structure.
There are a number of national agreements produced through collective bargaining arrangements for different groups of local government staff. The main negotiating bodies relevant to our workforce and their scope are listed below.
Brighton & Hove City Council operates these national conditions as amended by local agreements.
The National Joint Council (NJC) for Local Government Services negotiates collective agreements on pay and conditions for local authority employees not covered by other specialist negotiating bodies (such as teachers).
The Joint Negotiating Committee for Chief Officers of Local Authorities (JNC) covers the pay and conditions for Chief Officers (this includes deputy Chief Officers).
The Joint Negotiating Committee for Chief Executives of Local Authorities covers the pay and conditions for Chief Executives.
The Soulbury Committee negotiates the pay and conditions for advisory staff in local authorities, such as:
The Joint Negotiating Committee for Youth and Community Workers covers the pay and conditions of youth and community workers.
While the full council formally approves our Pay Policy Statement, the Cabinet is responsible for setting policy on pay and conditions of employment within Brighton & Hove City Council.
We have adopted the National Joint Council terms and conditions for local authority staff as amended locally.
Chief Officers, including the Chief Executive, are mainly employed on nationally negotiated terms and conditions, but their pay structure is determined locally.
The relevant sub-committee, committee or the Chief Executive approves the appointment of staff in accordance with the Officer Employment Procedure Rules. We have adequate systems in place through the Appointment and Remuneration Panel to ensure value for money.
The Appointments and Remuneration Panel may also be consulted for its views in connection with the statement of pay policy as defined in our constitution.
The policy in respect of the remuneration of interims and consultants is set out under the remuneration of staff – contract for services tab.
We use a recognised, analytical job evaluation scheme to ensure there's an objective process for determining the relative size of jobs and thus allocating jobs to the appropriate grade.
This is used for all posts, apart from staff employed on Teachers, Soulbury and Youth Worker conditions of service.
The current pay and grading structure was implemented in September 2022.
All posts, apart from that of the Chief Executive, are employed on grades containing spinal column points.
All employees (other than the Chief Executive) progress through their grade each year (subject to satisfactory performance), rising by one incremental point, until they reach the maximum point of the grade.
Pay awards for NJC, JNC, Soulbury and Teaching staff are negotiated nationally
With the exception of Soulbury and Teaching staff, employees may be accelerated up the pay grade by a maximum of 2 spinal column points to recognise exceptional performance.
View our Additional Payments Policy.
National terms and conditions for Soulbury and Teaching Staff incorporate specific requirements around progression related to performance.
Staff are usually appointed on the minimum spinal column point of the grade. However, line managers have the discretion to appoint above the minimum of the grade, including where there are difficulties recruiting to a post or where an individual can demonstrate significant valuable previous experience.
The Chief Executive is required to consult Brighton & Hove City Council's Appointments and Remuneration Panel on the appropriate starting salary where there's any proposal to offer a salary outside of the current grading structure for Chief Officers.
In addition, an Appointment and Remuneration Panel is responsible for advising on any proposal to offer a salary package for any other Officer that:
The Chief Executive’s salary is set to ensure that it's competitive:
The salary is on a single fixed salary point. Nationally negotiated cost of living awards are applied.
The Chief Executive may receive a fee for acting as the Returning Officer at elections. Fees for local elections are set using the East Sussex Scale of Election Fees and Charges. National election fees are set by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government.
Full council is required to approve the appointment of the Chief Executive following the recommendation of such an appointment by the Appointment and Remuneration Panel.
The pay and grading of the Corporate Leadership Team is determined by:
Corporate Directors progress to the next point of their grade scale subject to meeting objectives set in their annual Performance and Development Plan as determined by the Chief Executive.
Once at the top of the scale, they continue to receive the JNC for Chief Officers nationally negotiated cost of living awards.
To ensure sufficient flexibility to reward staff undertaking additional responsibilities, our policy on Additional Payments provides for Acting Up payments or a one-off Honorarium Payment to be made in specific circumstances.
We may pay a market supplement in accordance with our market supplement policy where there are proven shortages of individuals with particular skills and experience.
We're committed to becoming a carbon-neutral city and promoting healthy and sustainable travel. This means that when employees are required to travel, they should be aware of choosing the most cost-effective, efficient and sustainable ways of travelling, both to and from work and within the working day.
Staff should first ensure that travel is necessary and that the intended outcome could not be achieved by other means, such as email, telephone or video-conferencing.
Where travel is necessary, staff should:
Where authorised, employees are entitled to be reimbursed for mileage they incur whilst discharging their official duties. This does not include mileage to or from home to their normal place of work.
The rate of reimbursement will depend on the engine size of their car, while other rates are applicable where motorbikes and bicycles are used for this purpose.
Employees who have to use public transport to travel for their role are entitled to reclaim the costs of the transport under our expenses policies.
We introduced our current allowance scheme for those employed on NJC terms and conditions on 1 October 2013.
These allowances reward employees who work outside our standard working week, which is Monday to Friday between 6am to 8pm each day. Working outside of these standard times will attract an enhancement to the hourly rate.
Details can be found in the Employee Rights and Responsibilities document.
Annual leave entitlements vary according to the terms and conditions of employment.
We publish annual leave entitlements on our website.
Membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) is subject to the rules of the scheme. The East Sussex County Council (ESCC) Pension Fund sets the contribution rates.
Our approach to dismissals on the grounds of redundancy or efficiency of the service and in the case of early retirement can be found in the following policies on our website:
It's our policy that employees who accept a financial package on voluntary termination of their employment with the council are not re-employed or engaged as a self-employed contractor or through an agency for a minimum period of 2 years.
Details of this policy can be found in the Re-Employment of Employees policy.
In exceptional circumstances, we'll agree to settle a claim or potential dispute upon the termination of employment by way of a compensation payment. In this situation, an officer panel comprised of the Director of People and Innovation (or their delegate), the Monitoring Officer (or their deputy) and the S151 Officer (or their deputy) will review a business case prepared by the relevant Chief Officer.
While the officer panel will scrutinise the business case and may endorse it, make recommendations regarding it or advise against it, responsibility for the final decision remains with the relevant Chief Officer.
In the case of Chief Officers, other than those who report to members of the Corporate Leadership Team, and in any case where the proposed total payment is £100,000 or more and does not meet the definition of a Special Severance Payment outlined in statutory guidance, then the Chief Executive may approve the severance package where the package has been recommended by Brighton & Hove City Council's Appointment & Remuneration Panel.
Our External Auditor is also consulted about any potential offers to Chief Officers.
Where a Special Severance Payment of between £20,000 and £100,000 is made to any officer, then as well as being approved by the Chief Executive, a record shall be made of the approval of the Leader or any other member agreeing to it.
All Special Severance Payments of over £100,000 and any compensation packages in excess of £100,000 which relate to the Chief Executive must be approved by full council.
In cases where an employee is redeployed into a lower-graded role due to their original role being made redundant, the annual protection payment will be the difference between the employee’s normal contractual pay in the former post and the normal contractual pay of the new post in year 1. In year 2, it will be 75% of this value.
After this, the employee will be paid at the top of the grade for the role they’ve been redeployed into.
An employee will have the amount of their protection re-calculated should their pay details change at any point during the protection period so that their amount of pay does not exceed the pay they received in the role they were made redundant from.
We grade all NJC and JNC Chief Officer roles using a job evaluation scheme to ensure roles of equal value are paid equitably.
Our allowance scheme sets out circumstances where individuals are entitled to payments beyond their basic grade.
Individuals employed on a contract for services will be paid at a rate consistent with the pay of directly employed staff performing a comparable role and will consider, where relevant, a premium to take into account any relevant market factors.
It's our policy to minimise the use of consultants wherever possible.
The approval of the Chief Executive is required before any commitment to expenditure on consultants over £10,000.
We publish details of staff earnings in accordance with legal requirements on transparency. This includes the relationship between the remuneration of Chief Officers and the median salary of our workforce.
The ‘pay multiple’ will be calculated each year and published on our website. View the pay multiple.
Historical information will be retained to monitor the pay multiple over time.
Further information is contained in the statement of accounts in accordance with the Audit of Accounts legislation.
The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017 requires all local authorities with more than 250 employees to publish gender pay gap data based on a ‘snapshot’ date of 31 March of the previous year to the year in which the data is published.
The gender pay gap is defined as the average pay gap between male and female staff in hourly pay.
We're required to publish the:
Further requirements stipulate the need to publish information related to bonuses received by each gender, however, we do not pay bonuses, and as such, we do not report under these headings.
We publish ethnicity pay and disability gap reports voluntarily.
View the most recent Gender Pay Gap and Ethnicity Pay Gap reports.