FOI 2025/1250

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I am writing to request information from Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board (ICB) regarding staff who are subject to pay protection following organisational restructuring or service redesign, and how they were affected by the 2024 NHS pay award.

1. Pay Protection

a. As of the date of this request, how many members of staff employed by Greater Manchester ICB are currently subject to pay protection?

b. Please provide a breakdown of those staff members by:

• Agenda for Change band
• Staff group (e.g. administrative, clinical, managerial, etc.) and by Directorate

c. For each pay-protected employee, if available, please include the start date of pay protection arrangements.

2. Impact of the 2024 NHS Pay Award

a. Of those staff on pay protection, how many:

• i. Received a pay increase as a result of the 2024 NHS pay award?
• ii. Did not receive a pay increase, due to the terms or ceiling of their pay protection arrangements?

b. For those who did receive an increase, was this uplift applied:

• To their protected salary level, or
• Based on their substantive band/role?

3. Pay Protection Policy

Please confirm whether Greater Manchester ICB has a local pay protection policy in place. If so, I would appreciate a copy of this policy or a link to where it can be publicly accessed.

1a. 17

1b. NHS Greater Manchester ICB (hereafter referred to as NHS GM) does hold the information requested; however, it is with regret that we are not able to process this part of the request further by virtue of section 40(2). This is because disclosure of colleagues Agenda for Change (AfC) Banding, and/or their staff family/group may lead to the identification of individuals. As section 40 (2) is an absolute exemption there is no duty to consider disclosure in the public interest.

1c. The start date of pay protection arrangements are listed below.

Please note that the arrangement dates for some of the 17 employees were the same.

2a. i) None

2a. ii) None

2b. For clarification, uplifts were applied to all staff, but the pay protection elements are adjusted – therefore there is no additional salary from the pay award.

3. Within legacy Greater Manchester Shared Services/Clinical Commissioning Group policy arrangements.