Lowest paid Employees
At a meeting of the Council on the 8th January 2013, Chorley Council adopted the "Living Wage Foundation" rates for all its employees, excluding apprentices (see below), to address the issue of low pay. The Living Wage Foundation, which is a national body, established and annually updates what it considered to be a "living wage" which is an hourly rate and is currently £9.90 for outside London. The rate is set by the Centre for Research in Social Policy and is based upon what it considers to be the basic cost of living to provide a minimum income standard. This compares with the National Living Wage which is currently £8.91 per hour for employees aged 23 and over, rising to £9.50 in April 2022.
The minimum points of Scale 1 of £9.43 and £9.63 per hour are still below the Foundation Living Wage despite the last national pay awards providing greater increases to the bottom points of the pay scale in order to address the Government proposals relating to the National Minimum wage. Work was previously undertaken by the Council in light of its commitment to the Living Wage Foundation rates, to redesign existing scale 1 posts to give them greater responsibilities which subsequently meant that they were re-evaluated under the national scheme detailed previously, to scale 2 and therefore remain above the Living Wage Foundation rates with some headroom for future increases in the Living Wage Foundation rates.
Therefore, all posts within Chorley Council, excluding apprentices, are paid at scale 2 as a minimum.
Salary range for Scale 2
| Point | Annual salary | Hourly rate |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | £18,933 | £10.02 |
| 5 | £19,312 | £10.22 |
Progression through the grade is by annual increments until the maximum of the scale is reached.
The bottom of scale 2 is higher than the current Living Wage Foundation rate of £9.90 per hours, to be implemented no later than April 2022, but this does give some headroom for future increases to the rate which is generally greater than increases to the National Living Wage rate.
Apprenticeships
There are a number of apprentices currently employed by Chorley Council, within Streetscene, Finance, ICT, Corporate Support and Customer, Services. With effect from 1st April 2014 the Council agreed that apprentices should receive the current National Minimum Wage relating to their age. With effect from 1 st April 2022 the new minimum wage rates are detailed below:
| Under 18 | £4.81 per hour |
| 18-20 | £6.83 per hour |
| 21-22 | £9.18 per hour |
| 23 and over | £9.50 per hour |
Apprenticeships are usually employed for a fixed period of 2 years. It is difficult to ascertain the exact cost of the minimum wage for all apprentices as it depends upon the age profile and date of birth of the apprentices at any given time, as the rate can vary by up to £4.69 per hour.