is this possibly discrimination?

[ThatFairPombear]

this is quite long winded i will try to keep it as succinct as possible.

i’m currently working in a band 6 role in the NHS (i have an equivalent working in another team but we do the same role and are essentially our own specialist service) there has been discussion for about 2 years (and before i joined the post) that both our posts would become a band 7, there was discussion at financial meetings and strategies meetings etc. Finally we got word that the uplift would happen over a year ago and we were told we had to interview for the role which we did June 2nd 2024 and we were offered the band 7 position on that day, so technically we have been working as a band 7 since that date.

We came up against lots of ‘red tape’ following this, firstly as the band 7 job technically did not exist we had to create our own job description (which felt a bit odd to me) and this took over 5 months to be approved, as it had to go through panels etc.

Eventually in Feb of this year, a senior manger told us that they had submitted the change form. I have worked in the NHS for many years and have worked in previous jobs where I have been uplifted from a 5-6 etc and i know that I should receive an email from payroll to acknowledge that a change form has been submitted and highlighting the change in pay etc. So a month or so passed and we had received no email regarding a change form so we chased this up with said senior manager, we were told that due to the trust’s financial position (it’s dire lol) all change forms had to undergo ‘extreme scrutiny’. It is now May almost june, no change form has been received in and we are still no closer to receiving our pay.

The reason i am wondering if this is possibly discrimination is i am 4 months pregnant, i officially told my manager one month ago and i don’t know if im clutching at straws but the timing is seeming a bit suspicious. There are other reasons why im questioning this, my manager has a habit of saying things he probably shouldn’t, he said to me about two weeks ago that my colleague had her money approved but mine is ‘delayed’. i was also told that they are not going to be funding for anyone to cover me during maternity leave.

i'm now being left 3 months before i go on maternity leave with no idea on my financial position (band 6 vs band 7 maternity pay is a big difference) and i’ve had to give notice on my flat as i don’t know if i can pay rent. Regardless of whether this may be discrimination or not, we are at the point of thinking a grievance is required as i’m stressed about my finances and it’s directly affecting my mental heath.

ive also reached out to a union who has said that because this issue proceeds when i joined the union (joined about 7 months ago) they can’t help me.

any advice would be helpful!

Hard to say if you have a discrimination case (if the only reason they've approved your colleague's pay uplift and not yours is that they'll have to pay you more in maternity pay then absolutely but proving this is going to be hard). It definitely sounds like a massive cock-up though, getting jobs regraded is really, really hard to get approved these days so they should never have promised that to you, things may be different in your trust but back in the day IME it used to be a relatively simple case of re-doing the JD, getting it job evaluated then sticking in a change form, now that money is so very tight it requires business cases and recruitment authorisation forms and a change management process and lots and lots of very senior management scrutiny - I suspect somewhere along the line some of this hasn't been done properly, possibly through ignorance or incompetence rather than malice and now questions are being asked higher up the chain.

Your management should never have promised you anything and certainly shouldn't have interviewed you for the job or offered it to you without being totally clear where the budget was coming from and that they had the right approvals. That of course doesn't help you now. I think you probably do need to put in a grievance (particularly if your colleague has received her additional money) but I couldn't say how likely it is to be successful, are you able to be really clear and evidence based on the differences between your 'old' Band 6 job and the 'new' Band 7 job and when you started doing the new duties and were you definitely, in writing, told this was your new job and you were to start working to that new spec? Just having offered you a 'new job' without a confirmed start date doesn't entitle you to the salary of the new job, you have to actually be doing the job which of course you would say you have been doing all along but then why did you have to apply and be interviewed for it if it was your job all along, the whole thing is really muddled.

Sorry OP that doesn't really help, I think you should at least escalate to your line manager's manager to try and get a resolution/some answers, I doubt your manager has tried to screw you over although that may be the net result through incompetence. Have you got legal cover on your home insurance, possibly some advice through a solicitor might help you present your evidence/case in the best way possible if the union won't help you?

Ex-NHS HR here.

what an absolute shit show.

Interviewing you for a job that clearly hadn’t been job matched and you’ve hung on this long!

Grievance. Set out the timeline of what has happened, date you started undertaking the higher level work and the impact this shockingly poor management has had on you. Had it been sorted out your mat pay would be being calculated on the highest salary. They’ll have to adjust it anyway when the promotion is put through, they may as well sort it out now. I’d absolutely “observe” that it’s odd that your colleague’s appears to have been sorted out while yours is further delayed (which you are sure can’t be linked to you sharing your pregnancy with management).

State that you just want it sorted now, without delay, and backdated to the date you started doing the B7 work else you’ll be seeking legal advice.

should do it.

If your union won't help you, you should contact Pregnant then Screwed for advice:

pregnantthenscrewed.com/

Yeah it’s very difficult to prove if it is discrimination and i don’t want to be perceived as someone who is just making problems out of nothing. I’m really not great at standing up for myself in the work place so this is all new territory for me. But i agree that this is a reflection of terrible management and now we are being directly affected by it. I did speak to my manager yesterday and i mentioned that me and my colleague are considering raising a grievance and explained why, i was advised to send an email to all over senior management advising we were at the point of raising a grievance, so i’ve sent that email as of yesterday but have had no reply. Thanks for the advice and also for the validation that this is a shit show and has been handled poorly!

thank you! i’ve spoken to my manager yesterday and said we are considering raising a grievance and then he advised me to email to senior management so i've done this and now me and my colleague are going to start gathering a timeline for a grievance. Thanks for the advice, i feel very out of my depth here and don’t know where i stand but it’s helpful to know it’s not right and has been handled poorly