To think the real salary should have been advertised?

[littlepieces]

I've just been through over four months of interviews, reference checks etc. for a public sector job. Yesterday HR called me to confirm details and casually dropped the bombshell that they're offering me a lower salary than was advertised. I was meant to qualify for a London salary uplift, as it's a London based role, but because the department is working remotely due to Covid that isn't happening now.

BUT, the department has been working remotely since the start of the pandemic, March 2020.

So why didn't they just advertise the remote salary? I would never have applied and wasted my time if they had. Without the uplift I'll be taking a pay cut. AIBU or would I be right to challenge this?

@Whatayear81

I did when I read some of the comments too!

Yes have been highly entertained by you - many thanks!

In terms of how to approach this, I do understand the temptation to press the point that they are wrong on principle. But I wouldn’t. You want this escalated from a junior person in HR to the hiring manager and not to someone more senior in HR if the end game is to sort out your own salary rather than open a can of worms on the whole recruitment drive. So I really would focus on yourself and say you are currently earning x and you would need to earn y (inclusive of any allowances). How they organise it is up to them but you need to give them somewhere to go that doesn’t involve giving everyone else London Weighting if they are opting to try and avoid that (rightly or wrongly). Your aim should simply be to ensure the hiring manager is aware you can’t accept the post for less than x amount per annum.

And certainly don’t do what was suggested by the person above and try to accept it on condition of an increase some time in the future - would never happen.

@pixie5121

But my point is that private also making cuts
Some will even be removing the London weighting
So struggling to recruit quality would be experienced by both private and public.
Not a problem specific to public

[quote Whatayear81]@pixie5121

But my point is that private also making cuts
Some will even be removing the London weighting
So struggling to recruit quality would be experienced by both private and public.
Not a problem specific to public[/quote]
Except the salaries for public sector for professional roles are already really low before any weightings are removed. Talk about the good pension only gets you so far if you are not able to afford the standard of living you could get elsewhere now.

@TatianaBis

I was trying to say, job adverts do refer to WFH and Covid, so you could have put two and two together that LBW is linked to working at the office and you wouldn’t get it WFH

But the job is only WFH for the moment, not permanently, and involves return to the workplace in spring/summer.

There is no set date to return to the workplace. And the London weighting can be always be added afterwards if OP then goes into the office regularly. But they should not be paid for something they are not doing, the weighting is based on working in the london office, not living in London! Also, there is not enough space in many of the london offices in civil service, so for many jobs they point out as well you might not even be able to work in the office regularly if you wanted to.

@dguu6u

Entirely depends on what is in the employment contract in terms of the listed permanent place of work.

Either OP is being offered a WFH contract and so won't be required to attend the office at all or will be eligible to receive expenses when she does or she is being offered an office-based contract with the appropriate allowances. Any temporary and discretionary working arrangements should not affect that as they are not contractual.

Sadly what I suspect they are doing is offering her an office-based contract but withholding the allowances. That is shit and needs to be challenged if it is the case as if OP accepts that contract there is no guarantee that London weighting will be applied when the expectation to return to the office resumes. As far as I am aware such weightings are part of the consolidated pay for civil servants.

Years ago I applied for a job that was advertised at £25-£30K. At the time I was on £22K.

I was offered the job and they offered a salary of £21K, and they wanted to do more hours!

After two interviews (plus one that was cancelled just as I arrived), and an exercise to complete, I was so pissed off that I withdrew my application and refused to negotiate further.

[quote Eleganz]@dguu6u

Entirely depends on what is in the employment contract in terms of the listed permanent place of work.

Either OP is being offered a WFH contract and so won't be required to attend the office at all or will be eligible to receive expenses when she does or she is being offered an office-based contract with the appropriate allowances. Any temporary and discretionary working arrangements should not affect that as they are not contractual.

Sadly what I suspect they are doing is offering her an office-based contract but withholding the allowances. That is shit and needs to be challenged if it is the case as if OP accepts that contract there is no guarantee that London weighting will be applied when the expectation to return to the office resumes. As far as I am aware such weightings are part of the consolidated pay for civil servants.[/quote]
Exactly.

I’m public sectors working at home and we are all getting our london uplift still

@pixie5121 thanks I didn't know that!
In that case this changes things, they are being sneaky.
I still don't understand why OP assumed a certain salary though. Surely if there's a range you ask for the very top, if you keep quiet they could pay you the lower end.

Are they just paying less than the start of the range then?

@Eleganz that's quite true.
Not only that. While private firms don't have defined benefit schemes, the higher salary + employer matching can often mean a larger pension pot at the end compared to a public sector employee. Not 'guaranteed' but with that amount easy enough to invest and grow even with low rates of return.

What WhereYouLeftIt has said.

They are trying it on.

@Whatayear81 the difference in private and public sector salaries is so stark in London that it doesn't really matter if the private sector makes cuts too, their wages as still so much greater it makes no difference. If the public sector salary is £40k, and the private sector is £80k, it doesn't matter if the private sector know a few £k off. If the public sector start cutting salaries, there won't be a public sector based in London at all. Maybe that's the future, but I suspect some Ministers won't like that very much. The CS might be able to recruit someone working from home in Newcastle, but they then can't expect that employee to work in the London office without paying expenses.

*knock

Yanbu

I thought it was bad enough when I got recruited to find out that everyone is put on the bottom salary in the range, and you can’t actually move up! Only people that have been in the civil service for years can be on higher salaries.

We still get London weighting even though currently back to wfh, and did when we were on hybrid working.

[quote sanbeiji]@Eleganz that's quite true.
Not only that. While private firms don't have defined benefit schemes, the higher salary + employer matching can often mean a larger pension pot at the end compared to a public sector employee. Not 'guaranteed' but with that amount easy enough to invest and grow even with low rates of return.[/quote]
You’d generally need an enormous pension pot (which most people will never have) to achieve a guaranteed income in retirement that a comparatively low level of contribution to a civil service pension would give you.

I think the London weighting is unfair.

You could have two employees doing the same job but one lives in London and gets paid the weighting.

That employee could be utterly shit at their job and the other one could be amazing but paid less.

I have a younger than me, single childless colleague, who still lives with their parents earning more than me simply because they (pre covid) commuted into London. They (like me) got their travel expenses paid so didn't need the money for that either.

The expense of London doesn't mean non London employees don't need additional pay too.

I don't agree @pingywingy. My OH is projected to have a much better pension than my public sector pension, because his private sector salary has always been so much more than mine (2-3x my salary). The OP isn't a low paid unskilled worker by the sounds of it, where private sector wages would be low. The London weighting alone for their salary is £8k, they aren't on minimum wage or even average income, they aren't "most" people. I'd bet my right arm the OP could earn a professional private sector salary which allows them to build up a decent pension pension pot, on the salary differential between public and private sector alone.

I think those criticising the London weighting misunderstood why the London weighting for many jobs exists. It doesn't exist to help with the cost of living, it exists because that's what the job market demands. If the public sector didn't even attempt to offer a London uplift, they wouldn't have any employees at all. You can see this problem all too well in teaching. Why would any graduate in something like Maths or Science train to be a teacher and live in London, when they could work in Financial Services/Data Analysis etc for 4x the salary? Heck, why would a English graduate train to be a teacher when they could earn 2-3x the salary in Marketing or Internal Comms? It's not to account for the cost of living at all, it's to allow recruitment. And it isn't enough in professions like teaching, so there's a massive shortage of teachers. In the CS it has to be even more comparable to the private sector, as CS skills could be every easily transferred to the private sector.

@Orchid876

I don't agree *@pingywingy*. My OH is projected to have a much better pension than my public sector pension, because his private sector salary has always been so much more than mine (2-3x my salary). The OP isn't a low paid unskilled worker by the sounds of it, where private sector wages would be low. The London weighting alone for their salary is £8k, they aren't on minimum wage or even average income, they aren't "most" people. I'd bet my right arm the OP could earn a professional private sector salary which allows them to build up a decent pension pension pot, on the salary differential between public and private sector alone.

I agree, public sector pensions aren't what they used to be either for new joiners. In fact, a lot of the benefits such as paid sick leave, annual leave entitlement don't exist anymore for new joiners.

There used to be something called the Hackney Factor back in the 90’s to attract people to work in Hackney on top of London Weightlifting. It was an extra 10% I think. Hackney more desirable now so assume it has gone although long standing employees may still have it.

It’s not really a matter of agreement. There’s no question about the fact that a defined benefit pension scheme (which are still available to new civil servants) which provides index-linked and guaranteed retirement income is more beneficial to employees - excepting the rarest of circumstances - than a defined contribution scheme pension. That’s not a criticism of anyone or anything, it’s just how pensions work.

" The HR rep brushed over this like it was fine. I don't think that's fine."
It's not fine. In my opinion, it's HR buggering about.

"Now I'm suspicious this isn't going to be a good place to work. Also I didn't apply for the role for fun, I applied for the increased salary."
I'd be suspicious too. An employer who doesn't stick to something they put in writing? Not to be trusted.