Herefordshire’s top public official is to get a pay rise

Herefordshire’s top public official is to get a pay rise of nearly 5 per cent from April.

Herefordshire Council chief executive Paul Walker’s salary is due to go up 4.8 per cent to £164,848 if recommendations are approved by the council’s employment panel next Monday (January 15).

Five other senior county officials on six-figure packages get a less generous 3.5 per cent rise. Corporate directors for children and young people Darryl Freeman, for community wellbeing Hilary Hall and for economy and environment Ross Cook will each take home £139,465.

The council’s director of governance and law Claire Porter, also known as its monitoring officer, and its director of resources and assurance, Andrew Lovegrove, also known as the section 151 officer, meanwhile each take home £114,261.

A further three service directors will each get between £90,249 and £95,076.

At the other end of the scale, the council’s lowest-paid staff, on its “02HC spinal column point 3” grade and numbering just three staff, get a 9.25 per cent rise, to £22,737.

The ratio between the council’s highest and lowest paid employee has therefore dropped slightly, to a multiple of 7.37.

The 315 staff on the council’s most numerous “07HC” grade get rises of 6-7 per cent to between £29,777 and £33,945.

The council has 1,414 salaried employees overall, the pay proposal shows.

It is currently trying to persuade around 100 staff to retire in order to save £4.5 million off its wage bill.

But it has also been paying what it calls “market forces supplements”, mostly to staff in children’s social care, who are also entitled to welcome and retention payments.

The government’s Office of Budget Responsibility expects inflation to average 3.6 per cent in 2024, remaining above the government’s target of 2 per cent.

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