Update on Glasgow City Council's Equal Pay Programme

Thursday 24 September 2026 

The Chief Executive of Glasgow City Council, Susanne Millar, has issued an update on the council's Equal Pay Programme. As you will be aware, Glasgow Life is an associated employer of Glasgow City Council, and so this also relates to our colleagues. You can read the update in full below:

Dear colleagues,

I want to update you on the next stage of our work to introduce a new Pay and Grading Structure and to explain an important formal step that the council is now taking.

On 20 August 2026, the City Administration Committee approved the new Pay and Grading Structure to be implemented from 4 April 2027 which will ensure equal pay for equal work.

In our efforts to reach collective agreement with Joint Trade Unions, over the last week the council put forward an offer which would have seen a substantial injection of cash and a ballot of trade union members - in order to give an opportunity for staff to decide whether the offer was acceptable or not.

GMB and Unite were in support of this approach but UNISON felt unable to give their members this choice. You may have seen communication from GMB and UNITE today which sets this out. I had arranged to meet UNISON this afternoon to try to find a way forward and unfortunately, they did not attend.

Regrettably, a consequence of this position and in the absence of an agreed way forward we need to serve notice to end existing pay arrangements. This is what is needed to lawfully bring our discriminatory pay and grading structure to an end and replace it with a non-discriminatory scheme from April 2027.

You will therefore soon receive a letter to your home address giving you notice of this change.

I understand this is upsetting. This letter is being sent to all of our non-teaching staff, including all of our senior team.

I want to reassure you that I value the contribution you make and I want you to remain employed by the Council. This process will have no impact on your continuity of service and we intend that your new contract will commence the day after your existing contract ends.

I also want you to know that we have tried incredibly hard with your Trade Unions to avoid this. If we had been able to reach an agreement with all three, we would not be taking this step.

I am sorry we are sending you this message at all and particularly at this time however I wanted to explore every avenue available to us before we took this step.

I have confirmed that we remain available to meet with the Joint Trade Unions at any time to try and reach collective agreement. However, if collective agreement is not reached, we will make individual offers of continued employment, setting out the proposed terms and conditions for you to individually consider. If you are in a post which has been fully evaluated, these terms will be in line with the information sent to you at the beginning of September. If your post is not fully evaluated, we will work to complete your evaluation and move you onto the new scheme as quickly as possible.

If you have any questions please contact me at asksusanne@glasgow.gov.uk.

Support is also available through PAM Assist, our free and confidential Employee Assistance Provider, 24 hours a day, seven days a week on 0800 247 1100.

Thank you, as always, for your patience and professionalism, and for your continued commitment to delivering services for the people of Glasgow.

Susanne Millar

Chief Executive of Glasgow City Council 

Managers: Please share this with colleagues who do not have regular email access.