Mid Devon council staff to be given £250 for Covid response

The one-off payment for 425 full-time equivalent employees will cost more than £106,000

Council staff are to be given a £250 bonus and a day off as a thank you for their work during the pandemic.

Mid Devon District Council's cabinet has agreed to pay the cash and holiday in recognition of their work and to also try to stop people quitting.

The one-off payment for 425 full-time equivalent employees will cost more than £106,000.

It will be "managed within existing budgets" while the "wellbeing day" will have an indirect cost of about £60,000.

'Global civil emergency'

A report to the council's cabinet said the incentive was "in recognition of the outstanding work done over the last 20 months" and would be "worth proportionately more to those at the lower end of the pay range," according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Councillor Nikki Woollatt, cabinet member for working environment and support services, said: "It's easy to forget that during the early days of the pandemic our officers responded to a global civil emergency…. from establishing how to keep basic public services functioning through to shutting some services and closing down provisions [and] from providing emergency food, welfare and financial support to those most in need, through to then working out how to safely and effectively reopen our services, places and spaces."

The report warned "the level of employee turnover is increasing and there is currently a very competitive labour market in this part of the country".

It said retaining current staff is "the first tool in the toolbox to address vacancy and turnover issues" and suggested the bonus - while being in recognition of staff contributions - could prove "better value than having to pay emergency contract rates across a range of service areas".

Ms Woollatt added: "It's of significant concern that we're seeing evidence that a return to normal has, in fact, been a return to many of the same levels of pressure but without the extra resources that were available during 2020 and increasingly without the same workforce resilience to shoulder it."

Members of the cabinet were told of a number of ways the council hopes to boost staff retention and recruitment, enhancing its apprenticeships' schemes, paying apprentices more, and conducting a review of salaries for key posts "where recruitment challenges are most acute".