Bonus payments of up to £15,000 may be made to encourage recruiting and keeping senior officers at Dorset Council.

A report to next week’s council claims that filling some senior posts has become increasingly difficult – although almost 30 posts are already on pay scales above £92,300 a year.

Said a report from a cross-party working group: “The evidence provided suggested that the council’s current pay ranges may not provide sufficient headroom and flexibility to ensure that we can remain competitive when recruiting to any chief officer role.”

Currently chief officers at the council are on a pay scale several times the level of the median salary at the authority, although a flat rate increase in pay for the current year of £1,925, has, effectively, reduced the differential between average earners and those on higher rates.

The report says the result of the £1,925 nationally agreed payment is a 10.5% increase for the lowest paid council officers, compared to just over 1.1% for the highest earner.

Councillors will be asked next week to approve what has been described as “a market forces premium” of up to £15,000 extra per year on a case by case basis - but only where there is evidence of a difficulty to recruit or retain those in chief officer roles and where there is clear evidence of other authorities offering salaries above those currently being paid by Dorset Council.

The report says that no immediate changes will be made to the individual salaries of existing chief officers – which includes the posts of Chief Executive, Executive Directors, Director of Legal and Democratic (Monitoring Officer), Corporate Directors, Director of Public Health, Deputy Director of Public Health and Consultants in Public Health.

Documents before next week’s council meeting suggest that the lowest paid Dorset staff are on the equivalent of £20,258 a year with roles within the grade including catering assistants, general assistants and school crossing patrol staff.

For chief officers the salary range listed by the council vary from £174,458 for the chief executive role; between £129,577 and £145,534 for executive directors and the director of public health (five posts); £92,345 to £118,940 for corporate directors, the monitoring officer, deputy director of public health and consultants in public health (21 posts).

All of the posts have the expectation of having to work, when required, beyond the nominal 37 hours a week.

Additional payments on the higher pay scales are available for removal and associated expenses when first appointed. There is also scope for additional payments of up to £1,000 for senior officers who have ‘performed exceptionally’ outside the normal scope of their duties and a scheme of salary protection for 18 months in cases of redeployment due to redundancy or reorganisation.