Thursday, 27 January 2022 – That’s Not What it Says

The St George Rhino emailed me back last night replying to my comment that the National Minimum Wage for apprentices of £4.30 per hour would not be considered reasonable by the council if no-one is applying for these jobs:

“…we pay our apprentices National Minimum wage for their age group [£8.91 for age 23 and over, £8.36 for 21-22, £6.56 for 18-20 and £4.62 for under 18], not an apprenticeship wage which is £4.30.  We are pushing contractors to pay a Living Wage, I am hoping I can change some of the adverts soon to reflect this, however, it is hard to get them all on board. (sic)”

 

What?

That’s not what her job advertisements say.  They advertise apprenticeships as “National Minimum Wage for age”.  The National Minimum Wage for apprenticeships is £4.30 per hour.  There are no gradations for different age groups, so this advertised wage is, at best, ambiguous.

Berkeley Group are not the only developers I work with that pay specific hourly rates for S106 jobs yet use vague words to advertise the wage rather than numbers.  Laing O’Rourke on the Olympia Exhibition Centre development insists on doing the same.  I don’t know why they are doing this.  If it’s a fudge, it’s not helping the developer because no-one is applying, and S106 officers (I presume by my own example) are not falling for this as being reasonable endeavours because, I’m sure like WorkZone’s candidates, I didn’t interpret the advertised pay as being multiple times higher than it seems to say.

And why is she telling me that “it is hard to get [St George’s contractors] all on board”?  In her original email on 10 January, sent without prompt or provocation, she implied their actions mounted to reasonable endeavours and accused the Council’s job brokerage service of lacking purpose and letting her employers down.  Now, in response to my conclusion, she has gone full reverse ferret confessing that the ads need changing and otherwise is unable to get the employers on the development to comply with the S106 agreement and offer a reasonable wage to attract any local job candidates.

All I can think to reply to that is, “Good luck with that and let me know if you try to meet the obligations of your planning permission” but that wouldn’t be very diplomatic.  So I say nothing.

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