Benefits of Working for the Council

There are a number of benefits of working for Newham Council...

a) Final Salary Pension Scheme
You are invited to join the Local Government Pension Scheme, which is regarded as one of the most generous currently available. Your contribution will be between 5.5% and 7.5% of your pensionable pay, depending on your earnings and we contribute 18.4% (rate for 2008/9). The scheme provides excellent benefits in the form of an index linked retirement pension based on your length of service and final year's salary, together with ill-health, redundancy and death benefits. You can also increase your retirement benefits by paying Additional Voluntary Contributions.

b) Working hours
The Council understands that balancing work and home-life commitments can sometimes be difficult, and that people have different preferences in the way that they wish to work. That's why Newham offers flexibility to employees in their hours of work. Depending on the requirements of the service, it may be possible to arrange job sharing, term-time working, compressed working hours or working from home.

c) Annual Leave and Career Break Scheme
We provide a minimum of 23 days annual leave (including three days at Christmas), increasing with your length of service and grade (see job pack for specific entitlement). You may also be entitled to flexi-days if you work flexitime. We also operate a Career Break Scheme enabling employees to take an unpaid break of six months to five years for personal development opportunities or to deal with personal matters (this is dependent on you having five years of service and on the needs and requirements of your team and job).

d) Holiday of a lifetime/ visits to relatives abroad
You are entitled to carry over up to 4 weeks annual leave entitlement from one leave year to the next to facilitate visits to relatives abroad. Also you can bank up to 3 months over a number of years to go on a holiday of a lifetime.

e) Maternity, paternity and adoption leave
We provide excellent maternity and paternity benefits with up to 26 weeks paid leave for mothers and 2 weeks paid leave for fathers (dependent on length of service). Mothers can take up to a year's leave after the birth of their child with the opportunity to request to return to work either full time or on a job sharing basis. Adoption leave is also provided.

f) Childcare vouchers
Childcare Vouchers are a government initiative. They help parents and carers to reduce their childcare costs by allowing them to pay for childcare vouchers through the payroll, so they save on tax and national insurance payments.
We offer a childcare voucher scheme where you can choose to take up to a maximum value of £243 per month, as part of your pay.

g) Occupational sick pay, Dependent Care Leave and Compassionate Leave
If you are ill, you will receive occupational sick pay after one year of employment, unless you have previously worked for another recognised authority (e.g. another local authority). The amount of sick pay you receive is dependent on your length of service and can range from one month to six months on full pay and six months on half pay. For your first year, you will not receive sick pay, but you can claim statutory sick pay. We also provide dependent care leave and compassionate leave.

h) Trade Union membership
We have concluded agreements with nationally recognised trade unions and provide the facilities to help them represent their members on a corporate, departmental or individual basis.

i) Discount schemes
We have discount schemes with major high street retailers, tourist attractions and sports and leisure facilities. We have competitive interest rate schemes on personal loans and a vehicle loan scheme. We also have interest free season ticket loans and a car share scheme to encourage people to use alternatives ways to travel to work.

j) Season tickets
The Council provides interest free loans to purchase annual or six monthly travel cards for bus or/ and rail travel. The maximum loan amount is £1,500 or up to 10% of salary.

k) Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)
The Council's Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) is a free and independent service for all employees and their immediate families. Operated by Right CoreCare, the service provides confidential, freephone access 24 hours-a-day, 365 days-a-year to counsellors and advisors who can provide both practical and emotional support on a variety of issues. The service also offers legal and financial information.

l) Learning and development
Apart from mandatory training we offer all our staff, we also offer:

Graduate Development Programme - For some years Newham has been participating in the National Graduate Development Programme (NGDP), a two year learning and work placement scheme which is organised and recruited to nationally by the IDeA.
Skills for Life (SfL) is the national strategy for improving adult literacy and numeracy skills. Newham has been involved in SfL since 2006 and focuses on employees improving their English, both written and spoken, and maths skills to Level 2 (GCSE A*-C) and gaining a national qualification.

National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) courses are available for most Newham employees in Business Administration; Information Technology (ITQ); Customer Service; Team Leading; Waste Management;: Cleaning and Food Preparation and Cooking. A number of mandatory and optional units must be completed; these are achieved using a combination of tutor-led and work-based learning activities. Qualifications are usually achieved within six months and with a commitment of approximately four hours per fortnight.

m) Other benefits

• Newham employees can get a reduced rate membership and no joining fee on monthy GLL Wellness leisure centre memberships.
• Benenden Healthcare is a mutual 'not for profit' Friendly Society run by members for members. This is not a medical insurer, but members club together so they can get private medical help if needed. As an employee of Newham you will qualify to join Benenden (so long as you are under the age of 65) for as little as £1.10 per week