Pay information

In order to improve financial transparency within the Council, we publish details of our pay policy, and report the salary details of senior council officers.

The Council’s approach to pay

Under Section 38(1) of the Localism Act 2011, the Council is required to produce a pay policy statement each financial year.

In order to meet this requirement, the policy must be approved formally by the meeting of the full Council by the end of March each year. The policy can be amended in-year; it must be published on the authority’s website (and in any other way the authority chooses); it must be complied with when the authority sets the terms and conditions for a chief officer; and it must have regard to any statutory guidance on the subject.

The Pay Policy Statement refers to a number of other policies. These are listed below, and can be downloaded from the documents section of this web page.

  • Senior Officer Information
  • Senior Manager Pay Review Process (DOCX, 62KB)
  • Market Supplement Policy and Procedure
  • Temporary Responsibility and Honoraria Guidelines
  • Overall Remuneration of Chief Officers (see Statement of Accounts)
  • Performance Appraisal Guidelines
  • Pension Discretions
  • MKC Redundancy Policy

Senior Officer Information

Is published on the Transparency page.

Pension

The Local Government Pension Scheme is an intrinsic part of the employment contract for all members of staff. The availability of the scheme is a factor that is taken into account when setting levels of pay, so it should not be viewed as some kind of additional 'bonus'. The Local Government Pension Scheme is a funded scheme, which means that employees and the Council contribute to it every month – putting money aside to pay their pensions in the future. The rules governing the pension scheme are contained in regulations made by Parliament.

Expenses

All staff at Milton Keynes Council, including the Corporate Leadership Team are able to reclaim a restricted range of legitimate and evidenced business expenses, including business travel.

Pay Multiple

The Pay Multiple is defined as the ratio between the highest paid member of staff in the authority and the median salary of the whole of the authority's workforce. In Milton Keynes Council, this relationship is as follows:

  • Highest paid employee (Chief Executive) = £184,457 per annum
  • Median salary (Full Time Equivalents) = £29,577 per annum

The pay multiple is therefore 6.2:1

This ratio is below the expected multiples of 8.1 - 12.1 for the public sector as identified in the Hutton Review of Fair Pay in the Public Sector (March 2011) Report. A lower ratio provides the council with better value for money.

Gender Pay Gap

Here at Milton Keynes Council, we are extremely fortunate to employ a diverse workforce in a breadth of roles.  We are committed to equality within our workforce and our flexibility, working practices and wide range of roles ensure that we encourage and support employees to come to work for us, and develop their long-term career to stay with us.

We are required by law to carry out Gender Pay Reporting (GPR) under the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017. GPR is used to assess the levels of gender equality in the workplace and the balance of male and female employees at different levels. 

This involves carrying out calculations that show the difference between the average earnings of men and women at MKC; it does not involve publishing individual employees’ data.  The Gender Pay Gap Report provides information at the snapshot date of 31 March 2022. This information is also published on the government’s gender pay gap website.

As you will see from the report, we’re doing better than the national public sector pay gap.  We are extremely proud of the service our workforce provides to the community and to employ such a diverse workforce.

Using this information

This information is licensed under the Open Government Licence and you are free to download and reuse this data as outlined under the terms and conditions of this Licence.

When you use this information, you should include the following attribution, replacing *Month* and *Year* with the appropriate information:

[Senior Pay Information, Milton Keynes Council, *Month* *Year*], licensed under the Open Government Licence http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/

Further information

Requests for more details about items listed, or about how we publish this data can be submitted as a Freedom of Information request.

Regulation 4 of the Accounts and Audit (Amendment No.2) (England) Regulations 2009 [SI 2009 No. 3322) outlines the legal requirement which local authorities have to publish this data.