This Wednesday (1st February) Sheffield Green Party will call on the Council to publish the ratio of highest to lowest pay for directly employed Council staff, and for companies with major contracts such as Capita, Kier and Veolia. This is in response to a national campaign by the Equality Trust and the increasing public concern over excessive pay in public and private sector.

The British Social Attitudes survey indicates the majority of people think the head of a reasonably sized company should earn no more than six times the pay of the shop floor staff. The Chief Executive in Sheffield Council gets paid fourteen times what the lowest paid staff receive.

Years of peer reviewed academic research point to more equal societies giving their citizens better health outcomes, being more socially mobile, encouraging greater success at school and reducing teenage pregnancy, having better community life, more trust and less crime. There are different ways to reduce this gap, a key one being reducing the pay for top earners.

Councillor Rob Murphy comments:

“Reducing the gap between high and low paid has benefits when Council finances are being squeezed so much and we proposed to reduce the pay of senior Council staff in last year’s budget. It also makes sense when you look at the evidence. Once people get above a decent wage, more money doesn’t actually make them happier. And it makes others feel like they have to keep up or they’re failing in life.

We’re calling on the Council to make clear how much more the top paid executive gets than the lowest paid member of staff, both for itself and the major companies that run our services. In the long term we want to see those pay gaps reduce for the benefit of us all.”

NOTES :

1 – The motion council is as follows :

NOTICE OF MOTION GIVEN BY COUNCILLOR ROBERT MURPHY
That this Council:-

(a) notes the campaign “Act Local = Reduce the Gap” by the Equality Trust and the public concern over pay ratios as expressed in the proposals from all political parties to reduce excessive pay in the public and private sector;

(b) notes the British Social Attitudes survey 2010 indicated the majority of people think the head of a reasonably sized company should earn no more than six times the pay of a typical worker in the company;

(c) notes that years of peer reviewed research point to more equal societies having citizens who: have better health outcomes, are more socially mobile, have greater success at school and lower rates of teenage pregnancy, have better community life, more trust and are less likely to commit crime;

(d) believes that the Council can play a central role in tackling inequality through their own pay policies and also through their influence on private-sector contractors;

(e) therefore requests officers to:-

(i) publish the highest-to-lowest pay ratio for directly employed council staff;

(ii) hold discussions with private sector companies that have major council contracts with a view to publishing, where possible, their highest-to-lowest pay ratios; and

(iii) draft a policy to include these principles within procurement processes.

2 – The British Social Attitudes Survey 2011/12 has just been released and can be accessed via http://www.britsocat.com/Home