Pay, rewards and ways of working

Employees of Sunderland City Council are offered a comprehensive pay and rewards package.

Salaries 

Sunderland Council is a Foundation Living Wage employer. We pay and reward our colleagues based on the type and level of role you do. This helps us to make sure we are treating people fairly and that we remain competitive within the public sector.

Our pay scales are incremental, and you can expect to receive an annual increase until you reach the top of the scale.

Occupational sick pay, adoption/maternity and parental leave and pay available which increases with length of service.

Annual leave 

Full time employees with less than five years continuous local government service receive 26 days and those with more than five years continuous local government service receive 31 days (not including public bank holidays).

Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) 

The key features of the scheme are highlighted on the Thinking of joining pages of the LGPS website. 

As part of the scheme you may:

• receive a tax free lump sum as well as an annual pension upon retirement
• contribute more to your pension via additional voluntary contributions
• access your pension before your normal pension age
• take early payment of pension in the event that you retire on grounds of ill health

Online payslips 

Payslips are accessed from an electronic payslip portal. Following a simple registration and activation process, you will have instant access to your payslips from either a council or your own device (PC, smart phone or tablet). The portal is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Home and agile working 

Home and agile working is possible for many roles and can improve your work life balance and personal wellbeing, by offering greater flexibility of work location and time, as well as improved productivity.

Work is increasingly becoming "something we do" rather than "somewhere we go".

Flexible working 

We believe that flexible working can promote work-life balance and improve employee well-being, performance and productivity.

All employees have the right to request flexible working including job share, compressed hours, career break, annualised hours, part year/term time working and part time working.

Flexi-time 

With no 'core time' our flexi-time scheme allows you to have an element of flexibility over your working hours to support work-life balance.

We believe flexi-time can help with things like avoiding busy commute times, better incorporate school pick up/drop off times, making time for the gym/hobbies and being able to respond to personal situations without the need for using up leave.