shaun
finance manager, welfare benefits group, social se, leeds city council
Member since 22nd Jan 2004
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RE: Typical Salary for a Welfare Rights Adviser ?
Fri 17-Aug-07 11:52 AM |
I am not aware that this is about welfare rights jobs per se but about the particular job that you do in the council and how that is to be valued in the general regrading process. Job descriptions and the work of welfare rights advisers vary. I think that pay scales in the larger authorities tend to be higher as there are aspects of the job apart from advice. There is the issue of training, project leadership, social policy work etc. I would argue that the comparisons are with jobs within the council which also provide similar services. Local authority pay grades may suffer if it is only compared to other advice work within the council which is currently paid less. The issue then is should advice work in general in local authorities be better remunerated.
I think that the competences and skills necessary for community based advice work are undervalued when it comes to remuneration. Part of the problem is that the organisations that provide and bid for such work will necessarily have to limit salaries in order to obtain funding. The issue of welfare rights salaries will remain until such organisations have the confidence that funders will take into account that salaries need to be commensurate with the service provided and therefore be able to put in realistic bids. This will not happen as long as it is promoted and accepted that some service is better than no service at all. I would not envy anyone with regards to the practice of putting ones head above the proverbial parapet to try and make this happen.
By all means compare salaries nationally but we should also look within our own authorities e.g. legal and finance sections in order to make as strong a case as possible.
Apologies if I'm stating the bleeding obvious but other subscribers may not be aware of this issue of regrading of all posts in local authorities up to and including P06 scale. The reason for this was based on the outcome of increases in pay, which mainly affected women, for council workers who were paid less for work of a similar nature to that of other occupations. It was not intended to be a tool to down grade salaries in order to offset increases in salaries that resulted from this equal opportunity process. Altough I am not that naive to believe that this would not have come under discussion.
Good luck to everyone out there going through this process.
Shaun
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