You may have noticed when browsing jobs on the www.jobs.ac.uk website that jobs based in the public sector in London benefit from a better salary than those outside London due to what is called ‘London Weighting'. This article will look at the reasons for this increase in salary for those working in London and try to decide whether it is justified.

Why have London weighting?

The origins of the London weighting scheme date back to 1974 when the Pay Board recommended extra compensation for workers living in London. One rate was set for inner London and another for the London boroughs. When the Pay Board was abolished, individual institutions began to set the London weighting on a piecemeal basis. They are now guided by the recommendations of the London Weighting Consortium.

The Greater London Authority believes that the extra costs of living in London compared to elsewhere in the country justifies the extra salary provision given by London weighting. Without this, many public sector workers such as nurses, teachers and lecturers would not be able to afford to live in London. The issues of recruitment and retention in these sorts of jobs mean that employers find it increasingly difficult to attract the right people to their vacancies in London and to encourage them to stay in the job once hired. However, it is not just housing costs that are taken into consideration here. Because it is so expensive to buy a house in London, it is assumed that many workers will have to live a long way from their place of work and pay high costs to travel to work.

According to the union Unison, London weighting now amounts to more than £4000 per annum on average for those living in inner London who work in the public sector. For more on this see

http://www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/B694.pdf

For more detailed information on lecturers' London weighting, please see the UCU website which describes how different sorts of university in the capital support their workers by different amounts: http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=231

Is it a good thing? Arguments in favour of it

For those members of staff living and working in London obviously the salary increase is a good thing. Whether it represents enough of an increase to help people buy their own homes is debateable. But few would criticise a scheme that saw more money coming into their pay packets each month.

Although unions think London weighting is a good thing, they still do not believe that it is high enough, so even supporters of the system find flaws in the way it is currently managed. The UCU, for example, campaigns for parity between London universities and looks for an increase in the amount offered to its staff. There was a teachers' strike about this in 2002 that received national attention. They were annoyed that the London weighting for the police was increased to £6000 per year but other sectors did not benefit in line with them. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=172952§ioncode=26

Is it a good thing? Arguments against it

There are equally many arguments against London weighting. Private sector workers do not benefit from it at all anyway. Before the current recession it could be argued that increasing wages in this way would serve to increase prices and the costs of living in the city even more. This will probably not now be the case in our current financial climate.

Others claim that public sector pay is too low across the board and that the issue of London weighting distracts from campaigns to improve the lot of all teachers, lecturers etc. regardless of where in the country they live.

However, even those living outside of London sometimes face extremely high transportation and accommodation costs. Should we consider the impoverished residents of Oxford and Bath, for example, who may well also be unable to afford a mortgage on their meagre public sector salaries? With the increasing number of households in which both partners pursue careers, more and more people are facing long commutes to work. Many people pay as much to travel to and from work on public transport as those living in London, and yet aside from such things as interest-free loans from employers there is no financial support available to offset this expense.

This is a difficult issue and one that affects discussions of public sector pay and parity across parts of the sector. The debates are sure to continue...

Reprinted from www.jobs.ac.uk