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?

I agree with @pixie5121 - best chance of a good outcome is for this to be escalated to the chair of the interview panel. And best way to achieve that is to raise salary based on skills and experience because HR rely on the panel to assess that - whereas London weighting is an HR issue so if you argue that alone it won’t go to the hiring manager.

The problem here is that you sound like you are not prepared to walk away if they don't honour the ad. You say they are offering 8k less than you expected but you can earn 10k more doing the same as your current job elsewhere. Is that right? If so, what is the attraction of this one?

This is very poor practice. Walk away and tell them exactly why. It could take you years to get back to your current salary.

@babouchette

This is very poor practice. Walk away and tell them exactly why. It could take you years to get back to your current salary.

That isn't true, there are a wealth of opportunities in public sector for advancement. You get your foot in the door at one grade and quickly advance up the grade ladder once you've completely your probationary period, provided you select a role where you can evidence transferable skills.

There are more opportunities for rapid acceleration of seniority in Public Sector than in Private Sector where you can be pigeonholed in a role and they do nothing to support promotion (loads of threads on here about it), especially for women, whereas Public Sector have more policy controls in place to support women and reduce discrimination.

@littlepieces

As it's public sector with set salary bands and starting salaries, I don't think there will be any room for negotiation.

There aren't "set starting salaries" as in when you first join, you start at the lowest level. That isn't how it works. There are set salary bands, eg Band X £25,000 pa to £34,000

They match your existing skills and experience as evidenced by your CV and discussed at interview, to the Role grade as advertised. They discuss with you what your salary expectations are and come to an agreement. This normally takes place in a phone call,. If this exchange has only taken place by email, then you need to ask them for a phone call to discuss the salary, as you can't do this by email.

HR will comprise people who do the processing of recruitment campaigns, people who arrange interviews and people to make job offers and discuss salary levels. It isn't one homogenous "HR Department". You need to have a direct conversation with the latter, the people who make job offers to successful candidates and talk through your concerns with them.

You can't guarantee that though @daisychain01. Why should OP have to make lateral moves, climb the ladder etc, just to get back to the salary she is currently on? It makes no sense to me.

@babouchette

You can't guarantee that though *@daisychain01*. Why should OP have to make lateral moves, climb the ladder etc, just to get back to the salary she is currently on? It makes no sense to me.

There are no guarantees in life. None of us on here has the information to know if the OPs new role was precisely equivalent to the role they've come from.

So yes, you're right the OP doesn't have to accept the new role, but my points remain that if they do accept the new role, they could find many opportunities for advancement and my advice would be to have the conversation with the right person, to explore the salary offer and opportunities to increase it.

Otherwise it's a free country and they can walk away with no further obligation.

Op where you have applied sounds like my Department where there are London pay ranges for all grades and then national pay ranges for all grades.

Seems like HR have out the London range on the ad and now offering the national rate? What I advise is emailing the HR contact and pointing out it was offered on the London scale and ask them to confirm if now they're offering national rates that if you take the job you'll be based nationally or at home at that you won't be expected to travel into the office regularly- and when you are asked to travel in that all commuting costs will be reimbursed via expenses.

There is no way they'll want to agree you're home based for a London job. Ministers are very keen that civil servants come back to the office as soon as practicable.

Just on gov job website
Searched for all jobs in civil service in London
801 records

Went through first 20
Not a single one mentions London weighting in salary

www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SID=cGFnZWFjdGlvbj1zZWFyY2hieWNvbnRleHRpZCZ1c2Vyc2VhcmNoY29udGV4dD0xNDUyMjYxNDcmcGFnZWNsYXNzPUpvYnMmb3duZXJ0eXBlPWZhaXImb3duZXI9NTA3MDAwMCZyZXFzaWc9MTY0MTcyODA4Ni0wYWJiZjUxYmQzOThhNDE5MjcwMDNlNGE5MzIxNTRjOGFjYjMwMzVi

[quote Whatayear81]Just on gov job website
Searched for all jobs in civil service in London
801 records

Went through first 20
Not a single one mentions London weighting in salary

www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SID=cGFnZWFjdGlvbj1zZWFyY2hieWNvbnRleHRpZCZ1c2Vyc2VhcmNoY29udGV4dD0xNDUyMjYxNDcmcGFnZWNsYXNzPUpvYnMmb3duZXJ0eXBlPWZhaXImb3duZXI9NTA3MDAwMCZyZXFzaWc9MTY0MTcyODA4Ni0wYWJiZjUxYmQzOThhNDE5MjcwMDNlNGE5MzIxNTRjOGFjYjMwMzVi[/quote]
The London weighting is covered on the listing if you click on them individually.

To your point, @AnneElliott re place of work, if the OPs primary work location is in London, they would not be permitted to reclaim travel expenses (HMRC rules).

The only way round it would be for the employer to agree to the OP being formally registered as qa homeworker thereby the London site would not be their primary work location.

There are plenty of people in my large government Dep registered as homeworkers. In fact, many people relocated during the COVID crisis and thereby made themselves permanently homeworkers (go figure, the government need all the staff they can get!).

Yes that's what I meant @daisychain01. If she's on a national salary then her place of work should be a national (ie outside London) office or listed as a homeworker. I don't think it's possible for a civil service department to locate a role in London but only pay the national salary.

But @daisychain01 yes there are guarantees in life, that's the whole point of employment contracts - if you sign a contract to say you'll earn 40k a year then that is what you'll get. If you take a job on 32k a year hoping to get the salary up again, it may never happen.

I have been in this position myself before and I walked away. No regrets at all. If they were prepared to mess me around before I even started there I am sure they would have continued to do so with promotions and pay rises for the rest of my time there. When people - or employers - show you who they are, believe them!

On those listings, where do they make any reference to London weighting?
I genuinely can’t see

@Whatayear81 they don't say London weighting - in the first 2 at least. Instead they have 2 payscales London and National.

Are you currently employed? If you are I wouldn’t take the job and carry on looking. If you are unemployed I’d take the role and keep looking for something paying your market rate.
I recently went for a job and they offered it at the lower part of the salary band, told me the higher amount of money wasn’t available. I took the role and found something better, paying my market rate a month later, so I handed in my notice. I see it as entirely their problem for being so disingenuous on the original advert.

It’s been updated!!

Those weren’t the first two when I posted

@pingywingy

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.

That's not quite true. For a specific projected income, yes, defined benefit is better as there's no element of risk.

However - many private firms have large pensions contributions and employee matching. More than enough if invested wisely unless something really bad happens. Making a government pension only 'marginally' better.

There's no reasons for a high earner to settle for stagnating, below market salaries (sometimes 10-15K below market), with the promise of a guaranteed income decades later. When they can get higher pay now + a decent pension elsewhere. As a high earner they're in a position to hire financial planners, so unlikely to be left in the dust anyway.

The one caveat is people being 'higher earners' puling in a least 40K (outside London) and 75K (London). There are of course plenty of jobs where external packages aren't really comparable, the job isn't particularly in demand elsewhere so people are happy with they have.

@Whatayear81

It’s been updated!!

Those weren’t the first two when I posted

HR in the civil service updating job listings on a Sunday eh, to add the forgotten London Weighting…..? Lol!

@littlepieces
The London weighting is supposed to cover the additional costs of living there, not the commuting costs (which are generally reasonable in London anyway). I'm guessing that you already live there, since you applied for a London-based job. In which case the fact you're working from home is neither here nor there.
If they advertised the post with a London weighting and didn't say that would only be payable when office based work starts again I think that's what they should pay.
Alternatively, you could confirm they'll give you the uplift when work resumes in the office.
Either way, it might be worth having a word with your local CAB

littlepieces This is so fecking typical of public sector banding & HR, it will give you some idea what your letting yourself in for? They have 100,000 vacancies, nobody wants to work for them!!

Haven’t read the full thread but to answer your question about whether anyone has successfully negotiated their starting salary in the public sector, I’ve experienced both and colleagues have too. Depends how much they want to as to how flexible they’re willing to be. It’ll be best to approach to the people who did the hiring from the particular team rather than the people in HR. HR will give a ‘computer says no’ type response whereas the line manager will push HR to up the salary. I’m sure you won’t be the only candidate who flags this up. Good luck!

Fortunately you haven’t resigned from your existing job, so you have the option of continuing and applying for other new jobs at higher salaries.
Don’t even consider taking a pay cut! It isn’t just lower pay now but also a lower pension. Plus it means you would be on a lower base for future pay increases. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the way they’ve behaved, you don’t take a pay cut. I suspect if you were a man you wouldn’t be agonising or asking yourself questions over this, you’d either have got the money out of them or walked away by now. If they won’t give you the salary advertised then don’t take the job. Lots of other jobs out there with a pay rise. Get one of them. Simples.