JOINT NEGOTIATING COMMITTEE FOR CORONERS MANAGEMENT SIDE

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1 Simon Pannell Management Side Secretary, Local Government House, Smith Square, London, SW1P 3HZ Telephone JOINT NEGOTIATING COMMITTEE FOR CORONERS MANAGEMENT SIDE To: Chief Executives (London Boroughs, Metropolitan Districts, County Councils and Unitary Councils in England and Wales) Heads of Human Resources (copy to Treasurer) 22 March 2016 Dear colleague CORONERS PAY 1. We have now received a response from the Secretary of State for Justice to our letter to him dated 22 January (which was previously circulated). It confirms that he has no plans for MoJ to take on responsibility for coroner pay. 2. A copy of the Secretary of State s letter and the LGA s response are both attached. We will continue to support authorities with advice in connection with local discussions whilst we remain open to genuine and meaningful discussion with coroner representatives. 3. Secondly and importantly, you may recall that a coroner dissatisfied with his/her salary may under the terms of the Act refer the matter to the Secretary of State for consideration. We are aware that is the advice being given to coroners by their representatives if an authority refuses to apply the outcomes of the PWC JE exercise commissioned by the Coroners Society. 4. A number of authorities have told us that they would welcome a critique of the PWC Job Evaluation report that they can use either in discussion with coroners at local level or if approached by the Secretary of State s office. The LGA s critique is attached. In addition, authorities have told us that they would welcome advice on an alternative approach to job evaluation to be able to demonstrate that coroners can indeed be evaluated within the local authority environment and that the factors within Hay can serve this purpose - or be adapted to do so. Work is underway at the LGA to provide this as soon as possible. 5. Together with advisers and the LGA s research team we are developing the pay data survey and expect it to be issued within the next few weeks. To ensure that this finds its way to the correct person, I enclose a spreadsheet summary of the information we have gathered on coroner areas. The red text in column B shows those lead authorities where we have yet to be provided with an appropriate contact name for the distribution of the survey. Please note that the contact must not be a coroner but should be an officer of your council who will have understanding of and access to accurate and reliable information on the pay/allowances for all of the

2 coroner roles in your authority and who will be able to describe it for the purposes of the LGA survey. 6. Please also find attached a draft document that was brought to our attention recently origin so far unknown but discussion with a few authorities suggests it may be the Coroners Society. We felt that we should provide this draft to authorities as although it is designated as a draft it does look quite official and there is a chance of it turning up in individual discussions within authorities. This may lead to some confusion that it has been issued or even discussed with the LGA/management side of the JNC, which it has not. We would recommend that it is read carefully as, for example, it appears to suggest in places approaches that may be uncomfortable for authorities, e.g. open-ended sick leave. We thank you for your kind attention to our request for information and we will continue to keep you informed of developments with regard to coroners. Yours faithfully, Simon Pannell Management Side Secretary JNC for Coroners

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4 Rt. Hon. Michael Gove MP Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice Ministry of Justice 102 Petty France London SW1H 9AJ 11 March 2016 Dear Secretary of State CORONERS PAY Thank you for your letter of 24 th February in response to my letter of 22 January on the subject of coroners pay. On behalf of local authorities, I note your confirmation that the Ministry of Justice will not assume responsibility for coroners pay. This leaves the responsibility for determining coroners pay with local authorities, which currently accords with the Coroners & Justice Act To this end the Management Side of the JNC will continue to endeavour to exercise its responsibility in this regard on behalf of relevant authorities. Unfortunately, to date, we have been unable to agree on a way forward with coroner representatives, as they have been unwilling to move at all from their position on linking coroners pay to judicial arrangements. As authorities are to retain the responsibility it is clear that they will wish us to act on their behalf and furthermore to ensure that any discussion from a management perspective is led by us. In the interim, given the responsibility in the Act, we will support authorities with advice in connection with local discussions. That advice will include: Up to date and accurate coroner pay data (and any other relevant pay information) A critique of the PWC job evaluation exercise which was commissioned by coroner representatives. We have serious concerns about its very limited scope and sample e.g. it does not attempt to deal with a recommendation for part-time senior coroners of which there are a significant number in post. More importantly it does not provide the basis for setting coroners pay within the context of local authorities and may leave all local authorities vulnerable to equal value claims were its recommendations to be implemented. It tells us only what some salary levels may be in the context of the Senior Salaries Review Body judicial scales. That may be relevant if the Ministry of Justice was responsible for remuneration. However, it is clear that will not be the case. Local Government House, Smith Square, London SW1P 3HZ T F E info@local.gov.uk Registered Office Local Government House, Smith Square, London SW1P 3HZ

5 An appropriate approach to job evaluation that takes into account relevant factors that are common and relevant to all senior posts for whom authorities are responsible for pay. You will appreciate that pay negotiations, research to support such negotiations be they at national or local level, and job evaluation are all areas in which the LGA has considerable expertise and wide-ranging experience. On this matter we will continue to work with advisers from authorities who have coroner-specific experience. Following the meeting with your officials in September last year, we are of course happy to meet with them again to explain what the Management Side approach must now be. Such a meeting would also enable us to discuss further with them your offer of further assistance in resolving the current impasse. Yours sincerely, Simon Pannell Management Side Secretary c.c. Rt. Hon. Caroline Dinenage MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice) Local Government House, Smith Square, London SW1P 3HZ T F E info@local.gov.uk Registered Office Local Government House, Smith Square, London SW1P 3HZ

6 LGA Critique of the PWC Job Evaluation Report Thank you for asking me to comment on the report. I note that it was commissioned by the Coroners Society of England & Wales in June I have read the executive summary and reviewed the factor plan and methodology that has generated the conclusions and recommendations. The introduction/foreword states that PWC have evaluated the role of coroner at each level thus enabling them to comment on relative job size within the professional group. They have used the same methodology used in 2006 so can assess the level of change/growth in the job. The scheme used has been used to evaluate other judicial posts and therefore enables PWC to make comparison on relative job size with other judicial posts. It is a five factor scheme and the factors are relevant but highly specific to this professional group so do not enable comparison with other professional or managerial roles within local government. Job evaluation is a systematic approach to determining relative job size with a population of different jobs. It does not determine levels of pay and reward and is only a part of the pay jigsaw. Most schemes contain factors, the PWC scheme has 5, which must be common to all jobs within the population and enable differences to be distinguished when applied. The 5 factors in this scheme are summarised below; Jurisdiction Complexity of cases Impact Court craft Out of court requirements Just a look at the factor headings reveal the specialised nature of this scheme and the limitations of its scope. The most commonly used schemes to determine the relative job size of senior manager posts within local government are the Hay Group guide chart and profile methodology and the LGA senior manager scheme. What the PWC scheme and report tells us is the relative job size of the different coroner roles in comparison to each other and the wider judicial sector, not the wider local government sector. PWC also, by reference to their work for the SSRB, demonstrate (assuming their evaluations are robust, a sample of 11 could be challenged in this context) the salary levels coroners would be paid were they remunerated by the Ministry of Justice. However, it is important to note that all job evaluation does is determine relative job size. The Hay scheme which is extensively used by both private and public sector organisations (and has been used to underpin Senior Salary Review Body (SSRB) recommendations in previous years) contains factors that are common to all jobs, e.g. Know how Problem solving Accountability The strength of this factor plan is that un-adapted it can be used to make valid comparisons on job size between diverse professional groups working in different sectors. This enables users of the Hay scheme to access the Hay pay database to compare market pay levels for jobs within their organisation against jobs of the same size in the wider economy. This data informs their judgements on pay but they are completely free to pay whatever is appropriate

7 within their organisation, irrespective of salaries paid in other organisations/sectors. While many other senior management roles within local government require specialist sectoral/service knowledge, e.g. education, adult social care, all jobs require some level of Know How and are required to solve problems. In this context the Hay Group scheme can be applied to all senior manager posts and by comparing like with like determine relative job size. The key point is that while it may be of academic interest to know what a coroner would be paid if paid by the MOJ with other judicial posts, the MOJ neither appoints nor pays coroners. Coroners are appointed by and paid by local authorities and in this context it is primarily from local government where salary comparisons should be made. (It is acknowledged that new appointments must be approved by the Secretary of State and the Chief Coroner but nonetheless the responsibility for the appointment and remuneration of coroners is with local authorities.) When the Hay data is used by local authorities, all financial institutions that pay bonuses are excluded from the data sample. Jobs within the finance sector are paid considerably more than jobs of an equivalent size within the public sector so their inclusion would have an inflationary effect on the data sample. By the same token we can t determine the salary levels for one group of local authority staff largely by reference to external comparators or we risk creating inflationary comparisons from other groups of senior local authority staff. The PWC factor plan is unsuitable for evaluating other chief officer roles within the local government sector due to the very specific and narrow definitions it applies. To get a proper sense of the relative job size of a coroner post that would meaningfully inform pay negotiations, a scheme such as the LGA chief officer scheme or the Hay scheme should be used. Either of these schemes would enable comparison on the basis of relative job size against suitable comparators within local government. Adam Barker Senior Adviser Local Government Association