4th Floor, Alexandra House, 10 Station Road, Wood Green, London N22 7TR
Tel: 020 8489 0000 Fax: 020 8489 3100
www.haringey.gov.uk
Interim Head of Human Resources Steve Davies /
L Benson
Via email only / 2 November 2012
SD/FB/LBH/1011612
020 8489 3177
Dear L. Benson
RE: FOI- LBH/1011612 – Council staff and performance related pay
I refer to your information request of 20 August 2012.
In response to your questions the answers are outlined below in relation to these.
You made an initial enquiry about staff entitlement to bonuses and performance related pay, and whether any performance payment was in relation to achieving a reduction in council spend. You have asked the following additional follow up questions:
a. I specifically had enquired what department staff who received
bonuses or performance related pay were in. This question was not
responded to. Please can you supply this information as requested.
For clarity, can you state both the numbers of staff entitled to
bonuses or performance related pay, their departments and the
numbers of staff who received bonuses or performance related pay
and their departments,
Please see the table below.
Directorate / Entitled to Performance pay / Paid performance incrementAdults & Housing / 9 / 6
Children’s Services / 19 / 18
Chief Executive’s / 13 / 6
Corporate Resources / 31 / 23
Place & Sustainability / 15 / 10
Council / 87 / 63
b. I specifically asked what are the terms of which they achieve
their performance related pay & or bonus, for clarity what is it
that they had achieved to receive this additional payment? What was
the target or task they had been given and how was this measured.
The assessment of performance is based on achieving a number of service specific and corporate based targets set at the beginning of the appraisal cycle in April – June each year. The meeting of targets is determined by the line manager of each senior officer being assessed, with a recommendation for performance increment award made by that line manager. The council’s Corporate committee makes the final decision on whether to approve a performance payment and they are advised by an independent adviser on matters of senior pay.
c. I had asked if any of the above were awarded for making council
cuts or savings, although this was responded to vaguely, I would
like specifics on what those cuts or savings were for each related
pay & or bonus.
There were no specific targets identified in relation to a monetary value in terms of budget or expenditure amount to cut or save. The appraisal targets of senior staff make reference instead to the management of relevant budgets and resources. Therefore whilst managers have reviewed and re-engineered their services to help achieve budget cuts, there were no specifics identified.
In addition, I would like to know
d. Was the related pay & or bonus simply awarded for making a cut
or saving? Or was there an assurance that needs of the public would
also be met and delivered with quality. What I am trying to
ascertain is, were the cuts or savings met to meet a budget or was
this to meet a budget and ensure quality delivery. i.e. efficiency
savings over cuts. Your response suggests that no care to achieve
quality or efficiency was made, just meeting of a cut in budget and
I wish to give you another opportunity to clarify.
Inherent in the review and restructure of any service to achieve a budget cut a manager would be mindful of maintaining as good a service as possible within the resources left by the budget reduction. The Council and its managers took decisions on service changes to maintain as good a service as possible and to achieve a balanced budget. The Council were also keen change the proportion of support services to resident delivery services in order to protect front line services as much as possible. Before restructuring this ratio stood at 30% support, 70% resident delivery. As a result of the restructures we have successfully delivered a change in this ratio which now stands at 19% support and 81% resident delivery.
e. Who made the judgement that the 87 senior managers you referred
to actually achieved their objective? If it was a Line Manager, was
there a conflict in chain-objectives, i.e. if the Line Manager did
not award their staff the increment for non performance, then were
they too stating they did not perform?
Please see the answer to question (b) above.
f. Of the 821 staff you state were made redundant or reduced, how
many of them were eligible for a performance related pay or bonus
Twenty eight staff were eligible for performance related pay.
If you have any further queries please contact the Feedback and Information Team as below. (Please note you should do this within two months of receiving this response.)
Feedback and Information Team
River Park House
225 High Road
N22 8HQ
Telephone: 020 8489 2550
Email:
Yours sincerely
Steve Davies
Head of Human Resources