IDR Conference 12 September 2024: Pay Planning for 2025

Guest speakers:

Tim Butcher

Tim’s presentation will cover the outlook for the National Living Wage (NLW) and National Minimum Wage), including the new remit announced by the government, and the impact of the rates so far.

Tim is the Chief Economist and Deputy Secretary at the Low Pay Commission, where he advises on economic and statistical issues. He leads on analysis of the impact of the minimum wage and manages the research programme. He advised the German and Irish Governments when they set up their minimum wage commissions. He has been at the Low Pay Commission since 2003. In that time he has also been seconded to the Office for Budget Responsibility and spent a week in industry at Tesco. He is also a Policy Fellow of the German research institute, IZA.

Prior to this, he worked for the Department for Trade and Industry looking at employment relations issues and regional policy. Before joining the Government Economic Service in December 2001, he held academic positions at Queen Mary and Westfield, Royal Holloway, and the University of Essex, publishing work on a range of labour market issues.

Darren Newman

Darren’s presentation at the conference will focus on Labour’s plans for employment law.

"The Labour Government was elected on a manifesto that included radical change to the law around trade unions, industrial action and individual employment rights. This session will look ahead to what lies in store for this area with an emphasis on issues relating to pay. In particular I will cover:

• changes to the scheme on union recognition
• the abolition of postal ballots for industrial action
• what the Government means when they say they will ban ‘fire and rehire’
• extending equal pay law to cover race and disability
• new rules on pay gap reporting covering gender, ethnicity and disability."

Sarita Coleman, RSPCA

Sarita’s presentation at the conference will focus on how the RSPCA is enhancing its total reward strategy at the RSPCA, and will include:

• an overview of the RSPCA
• pay structure overview (now vs where we were)
• importance of benefits in total reward
• how the RSPCA reviewed benefits (survey, focus groups and key stakeholder meetings)
• what the organisation learnt from colleagues
• benefits now and in the future.

Kelly Dunning, GWR

Kelly’s presentation will explain the current challenges at Great Western Railway (GWR) regarding pay and reward, and the work the company has undertaken, together with IDR, to resolve these challenges. Kelly will explain the approach that has been taken so far and discuss the next steps, including interdependencies and risks.

Alastair Hatchett, Chair

Alastair was Head of Pay Research for many years at Incomes Data Services where he organised and spoke at many different conferences on pay and the labour market. He worked on a wide range of research projects, including projects for the Low Pay Commission and the Pay Review Bodies. Since his retirement he has written regularly for Incomes Data Research. He is a visiting fellow at the University of Greenwich.

The conference is priced at £115+VAT.

Subscribers to IDR services receive a £20 discount.