Birmingham City Council reaches agreement with unions over job grading scheme

Councillor John Cotton said the council had been facing industrial action over the job grading scheme

Birmingham City Council has said it has reached an agreement with trade unions in a move to stem equal pay claims.

Last month the local authority effectively declared itself bankrupt by issuing a section 114 notice.

It was in large part due to a bill of up to £760m to settle equal pay claims, despite already paying £1.1bn in compensation to underpaid workers.

Council leader John Cotton said he was delighted to have reached an agreement with unions over a job grading scheme.

"I am delighted that GMB, Unison and Unite have all signed the addendum which sets out how we will carry out the Job Evaluation Scheme at Birmingham City Council," he said.

"This is a huge step forward as we seek to put our council back on a sound financial footing."

The Labour-run council's issue with equal pay dates back to 2012 and a Supreme Court ruling, which found hundreds of mostly female employees working in roles such as teaching assistants, cleaners and catering staff missed out on bonuses which were given to staff in traditionally male-dominated roles such as refuse collectors and street cleaners.

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Mr Cotton said it had been clear to him from the start that the only way to bring the dispute to an end was to "deliver a fair and robust job evaluation scheme".

He said without an agreement with unions any scheme "would surely collapse, leading to costly and disruptive industrial disputes" .

Stuart Richards, a GMB regional organiser, said: "We have to do it right, we have to make sure that people are involved in it and have trust and confidence in the scheme that we end up with."