It seems a pretty commonsense approach to align the pay and working conditions of people doing the same jobs for different public sector employers, does it not? Yet public sector HR professionals are not that easy to convince.

At the Public Sector People Managers' Association (PPMA) conference, Jan Parkinson, the managing director of Local Government Employers, mooted a new public sector worker status to allow staff to move between councils, the police and NHS, without suffering changes to their pensions, pay or conditions, Local Government Chronicle (May 8) reports.

Parkinson believes that the public sector labour market is being damaged by workers doing similar jobs for employers that have different terms and conditions and claims that the new status would bring stability to the work market and stop public sector employers poaching each other's staff.

Despite these arguments, 90 per cent of delegates disapproved of the plan.

Uniform policy won't suit all

HR gurus are dubious that aligning pay and conditions of those doing the same jobs for different public sector employers is a good idea

BACKGROUND

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Resolute public sector HR professionals need to evolve or face extinction, according to Stephen Moir, the president of the PPMA.

At the conference, he launched a scathing attack on what he called “HR dinosaurs” stalking some areas of the public sector and said that the age of the “lumbering personnel department” that slowed organisations down was dead, Personnel Today (May 6) reports.

Outsourcing, shared services, IT and efficiency targets are not threats to HR delivery, he said, adding that public sector teams needed to get to grips with them.

Moir, the director of people and policy at Cambridgeshire County Council, hit out at the “self-obsessed navel gazers” in HR, adding, “I'm sick and tired of being in a profession that wallows in self-pity. HR must stop feeling sorry for itself.”

Heads eye transfer fees

They may earn well short of the £100,000 a week enjoyed by some Premiership footballers. But head teachers are now in such demand that some are working with the equivalent of football transfer agents to ensure that they net the best possible wage.

In the cut-throat world of superheads and super salaries, school leaders can increasingly name their price, reports The Times Educational Supplement (May 9). Transfer agents can therefore negotiate with local authorities and schools on a head teacher's behalf, winning them rises of up to £25,000 a year. Because heads can also be sacked suddenly if they do not deliver results, agents can also negotiate “risk dividends”.

Nigel Middleton is one of the new transfer agents likening the market in head teachers to that of footballers. “It's getting to the point where I'll be saying to governing bodies, ‘Swindon's very interested in my client - I'd be interested in what your proposals are to retain him.'” He believes that retention incentives could include increases of about £6,000 in primary schools and £10,000 in secondaries.

Schools without heads could also benefit from the service - for the right price. “Transfer agents will be paying visits to governing bodies that can't find heads, saying: ‘I've got someone down the road who can help you, but you're going to have to pay for it,'” he says.

The National Association of Head Teachers said at its recent conference that illness, stress and marital breakdown among overworked heads was making it hard to tempt young teachers into leadership. To alleviate the situation, it is proposing pay incentives and free public transport for all London teachers.

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