Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor Robertshaw (substituted by Councillor Henwood).

There were no declarations of interest.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 5 September 2025 and to receive information arising from them.

The minutes of the meeting held on 5 September 2025 were approved with the following amendment:

To replace the text under Item 22/25 with:

“Councillor Epps who was online participated in discussions with the agreement of the Chair but, as he was not present in the room, did not vote.”

Members of the public who wish to speak at this meeting can attend the meeting in person or ‘virtually’ through an online connection. 

Requests to speak must be submitted by no later than 9am three working days before the meeting.  Requests to speak should be sent to committeesdemocraticservices@oxfordshire.gov.uk .

If you are speaking ‘virtually’, you may submit a written statement of your presentation to ensure that your views are taken into account. A written copy of your statement can be provided no later than 9am 2 working days before the meeting. Written submissions should be no longer than 1 A4 sheet.

No requests were received.

Report by the Director of HR and Cultural Change

The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017 stipulate that all businesses, public sector and third sector organisations with over 250 employees must publicly report on average pay differences between their male and female employees.

Unlike the gender pay gap, the Council is not legally required to publish its ethnicity pay gap. However, positive steps have been taken to measure and be transparent about the Council’s performance in this area.

The Committee is RECOMMENDED to:

a) Note the 2025 gender equality and ethnicity pay gap reports.

The Committee is RECOMMENDED to RECOMMEND COUNCIL to:

b) Note Oxfordshire County Council’s (the Council) statutory Gender Pay Gap report of 2025 and approve it for onward submission to the Gender Pay Gap Service by 31 March 2026.

c) Note the Council’s voluntary Ethnicity Pay Gap report of 2025.

The Committee was asked to consider two reports.  The Gender Pay Gap Report 2025 and the Ethnicity Pay Gap Report 2025 with a view to forwarding the reports to Council.

The Interim Strategic Pay and Reward Manager summarised both reports.  Members raised issues and the officers responded as follows:

·         It was difficult to put a value on the cost in monetary terms of closing the gender pay gap as it works on the mean and median figures at a point in time, but the smaller the gap, the lower the cost.

·         Similarly, it was difficult to put a timeline on when the gap could be closed to zero but the gap was closing with officers exploring further improvement works and examining the reasons why there were fewer females in higher positions in order to develop attraction techniques to tackle that.

·         Benchmarking the Ethnicity Pay Gap Report may be a challenge as this is not yet a statutory obligation for employers and so there will be few similar published reports to compare to but officers agreed to work with South East Employers on this.

Members also noted:

·         The figures were probably affected by the fact that work contracted out was not included.

·         Those in caring jobs sometimes did not want to be promoted but wanted to continue using their caring skills.  Those positions should be better paid

·         There were different ways of categorising groups of people.  The report compared White ethnic backgrounds and Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.  Reports from other sources might categorise by British and non-British.

·         More explanation of the figures would benefit understanding for members of the public.

The Chair moved the recommendations and they were agreed.

RESOLVED to:

a) Note the 2025 gender equality and ethnicity pay gap reports.

The Committee is RECOMMENDED to RECOMMEND COUNCIL to:

b) Note Oxfordshire County Council’s (the Council) statutory Gender Pay Gap report of 2025 and approve it for onward submission to the Gender Pay Gap Service by 31 March 2026.

c) Note the Council’s voluntary Ethnicity Pay Gap report of 2025.

Report by the Director of Law and Governance and Monitoring Officer

The information in the Annex to the report is exempt in that it falls within the following prescribed category: 

1.    Information relating to a particular individual. 

and since it is considered that, in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information. 

The Committee had before it a report on the negotiations on Coroner’s pay following the withdrawal of the Coroners’ Society of England and Wales (CSEW) from the Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC).

As Members wished to discuss the contents of the exempt annexes the Chair proposed ‘that the public be excluded during the consideration of the annexes since it is likely that if they were present during that discussion there would be a disclosure of "exempt" information as described in Part I of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act, 1972 and specified below the item in the Agenda.’  This was agreed and the meeting went into private session.

Following the discussion, the meeting resumed in public session.  The Chair moved the recommendations and they were agreed unanimously.

RESOLVED to:

a)    Take note of the current national position and the proposed actions to determine the localised position of the Council

b)   Confirm agreement to align Coroner pay to the judicial pay scale effective from 1 April 2025 and approve the uplift in additional financial resources

To approve the exempt minutes of the meeting held on 5 September 2025 and to receive information arising from them.

The Chair proposed ‘that the public be excluded during the consideration of items 7 and 8 since it is likely that if they were present during that discussion there would be a disclosure of "exempt" information as described in Part I of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act, 1972 and specified below the item in the Agenda.’

The exempt minutes of the meeting held on 5 September 2025 were agreed.

Report of the Director of HR and Cultural Change

The information contained in the report and annexes is exempt in that it falls within the following prescribed categories:

Paragraph 4 Information relating to any consultations or negotiations, or contemplated consultations or negotiations, in connection with any labour relations matter arising between the authority or a Minister of the Crown and employees of, or office holders under, the authority,

and since it is considered that, in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information, in that there is an expectation that consultation and negotiation should take place primarily away from the glare of publicity and public scrutiny in keeping with employment law. 

The Committee considered a report providing an update on Phase 1 of the proposed organisational restructuring for Tiers 5 and below, incorporating posts below Head of Service level. Key areas addressed were Financial and Commercial Services, Adult Social Care Phase 1, and Customer Experience.

The meeting continued in private session.  The recommendations were agreed unanimously.