I don't want to set this one running again, as it tends to go in circles,
BUT:
Salaries have long been an issue across all departments in Oxfordshire, and
there is general agreement that they've got badly out of kilter -
professionals with similar qualifications in different departments being
paid wildly different salaries, secretaries in one service being paid more
than the professional staff in another. Following their Service Review,
Personnel undertook to address this using a nationally agreed job evaluation
scheme which would have the advantage of not working from historical
actuality - in other words, the scheme doesn't allow you to say that
archivists should be paid less than other professionals because archivists
have always been paid less than other professionals.
The evaluation is taking for ever (which is causing some cynicism) and the
word is that Personnel have been seriously shocked by the realization of how
badly paid very large numbers of staff are, and the funding which will be
necessary to deal with this. Nevertheless, it has been reassuring that when
the review team have actually fed back to archive staff it has been with
expressions of incredulity - if you've really got all those qualifications
and skills, how can you possibly be paid so little? Far too early to say,
but I'm hoping that this will see a significant regrading of archive staff
on to professional rather than clerical levels at the end of the day.
If this does happen, I would hope that it could be the springboard for other
authorities - if an objective review in Oxfordshire finds archivists'
salaries too low, it strikes a severe blow at those authorities whose only
justification for paying badly is precedent. I will certainly keep the list
informed of any developments, and would be happy to learn that a similar
exercise is being carried out elsewhere in the country.
Carl Boardman
Oxfordshire Record Office
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