An email I received from the chair of the committee to the kids club I work at. The issue we the staff are facing, working for a not-for-profit, is that the club turned a profit enough to give all staff 10% but the committee won't budge on 5%. This has upset the older, longer term staff with mortgages and such. The younger staff probably noticed none of this before this email was sent out, and 50% of the staff are new 17/18 years from the last year.
Firstly, thank you again for the fantastic work you do to make ******* what it is. We know that the demands on staff are increasing including support for children attending the setting with additional needs, support for children post pandemic, and the potential impact of the Club growing further.
We are writing to follow up on the 5% pay rise announced recently as some staff have raised concerns. Please allow us to address some of these concerns and provide a bit more context to the decisions we’ve taken. Whilst assessing pay increases, we have considered a number of factors in trying to come to a balanced decision but mainly focused on the following three:
(1) rate of inflation: We realise and acknowledge that the rate of inflation has been around 10% for a while which has fuelled a steep increase in the cost of living.
(2) pay increases in comparable industries: In terms of pay rate increases in comparable industries, the Committee has found that UK-wide, 5% is a fairly reasonable increase with many public sector and not for profit organisations receiving less than this. In our experience, it has not been common practice to award inflation matching or inflation beating pay rises recently. In fact, to do this would potentially use up more money that the Club receives in income which brings us to the final consideration.
(3) the financial position of the club: Generally, the Club is in good financial health however it is important to note that the reserves the Club holds fluctuate significantly throughout the year. The reason for this is twofold: the timing of holiday clubs, and the timing of collection of fees. For example the Club collected £85K in fees in the first quarter of its financial year, but only £41k in the second quarter. This is a £44k difference. This means that without going through a full one year cycle, financial results could be misinterpreted. This financial year ends on 30th June 2023, at which point the Committee will have a good understanding of the true financial strength of the Club. With this in mind, the Committee will conduct a review of the Club’s finances at the end of the financial year in June 2023. We will then have visibility of the full year’s data and can establish if the Club is in a position to pay a bonus to staff (which is our intention).
We have also recently undertaken, or plan to undertake the following:
-
Ensured that all staff now have a contract of employment issued to them.
-
Started the process of securing outsourced HR support and payroll for the Club. This is particularly important to support ****** as it grows and the workload generated is more than a volunteer committee member is able to provide. This will also enable the Committee to ensure that it is providing the best possible support for staff in the scheme.
-
Aim to carry out an independent benchmarking exercise for senior staff salaries and subject to the finding of this exercise, conducting a further pay review later in 2023. We would also like to take this opportunity to apologise for both the late payment in March 2023 and the overpayment some staff received in summer 2021. We know that this has caused distress and concern, and this is one reason why we are investigating outsourcing payroll (see point 2 above) to hopefully reduce the chance of this happening again in future.
The committee feels that the fairest way to deal with the 2021 overpayment is to offer a flexible repayment plan of up to 12 monthly payments for staff affected by this. If we do not take this action, it effectively means some staff were overpaid whist others were not. This would not be fair to staff, or the right thing to do for the Club.
Please note that staff who were overpaid in 2021 have already been contacted with further details. There are also a small number of staff who were overpaid and have now left *****. We can confirm we will also make every effort to contact and organise repayments for these individuals. We will be able to provide further information shortly after the financial year end. Kind regards, **** Chair On behalf of the Committe