Employee Benefits

You will receive a competitive salary for your role. Our local pay arrangements at Test Valley enable us to keep pay competitive and provides flexibility to manage pay in line with recruiting and retaining talented people at all levels in the council. Local annual pay awards are negotiated and agreed directly with local trade unions.

All jobs are evaluated using a job evaluation scheme, which enables them to be aligned to salary bands that reflect the job size and responsibilities. Each band has three pay points, providing room for growth and development. Our pay framework ensures pay remains fair, competitive, and transparent.

Pay day is on the 18th of each month (or the last working day before the 18th if this falls on a weekend or bank holiday). Payment received on the 18th covers the entire calendar month in which it is paid. For example, pay received on 18th July is for the period 1st to 31st July.

We are committed to investing in your personal learning and development with a focus on encouraging and supporting you and the team you work with to continually improve. This is achieved in multiple ways including through on-the-job learning and experiences, getting involved in projects both within and beyond your team, support from managers and colleagues, e-learning and formal training courses. We also support people by fully or part funding professional qualifications.

We have high standards of leadership and management across the council and invest in an active leadership development programme which all our managers at all levels in the organisation take part in.  This includes through formal learning courses as well as being part of one of our leadership forums and action learning sets where managers and leaders share best practice and learn and develop together.  Our annual leadership conference, which all leaders and managers attend is the highlight of our programme each year, and in the past has included talks from nationally recognised speakers.

Where a job requires membership of a professional body, we will reimburse the annual subscription fee paid by employees in that role. 

We offer a range of flexible working options, where roles allow, such as part-time working and hybrid working.  Hybrid working enables people who work in office roles to work in a flexible way, mixing their time working in the office with working at home or another agreed location. 

Flexibility is balanced with the needs of the council, always putting our residents first.  The ability to work in a flexible and/or hybrid way is dependent on your job role, the needs of our residents, the wider team and the service you work in.  Arrangements for hybrid working are flexible and may change over time as the needs of the role or service change.  

We offer generous annual leave allowances to enable time off with friends and family.  This is based on an employee’s grade and their length of service in Local Government.  In addition to bank holidays, holiday entitlements are:

We offer a range of family-friendly leave policies, including enhanced maternity leave, paternity leave, adoption leave, and shared parental leave. Eligible employees may receive enhanced pay during these periods, reflecting our commitment to supporting work-life balance and family responsibilities.

Another key benefit is the Local Government Pension Scheme, with a significant employer contribution of c.18%

We’re all aware of how important it is to save for retirement and all employees aged between 16 and 75 who work for us for three months or more are automatically enrolled into the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). For more information of how much employees contribute into the pension scheme, please visit the link below

Employee Pension Contributions

We know that it’s impossible to go through life without facing problems from time to time .The Council recognises that there may be occasions when employees need some additional help. That’s why we provide a comprehensive package of well-being support to our employees. This includes: 

• Access to independent and confidential counselling sessions with one of the trained counsellors we work with, who can help with a range of issues including relationships; coping with change; bereavement or loss; workplace stress; money worries; addiction, and so on.
• An Employee Assistance Programme, offering access to telephone counselling and day-to-day wellbeing support, which can be accessed at any time. You will have access to a platform and app, containing lots of helpful advice and tools to promote your wellbeing.   
• A team of internal Mental Health First Aiders, who are trained to provide a confidential-listening ear, or to signpost to specialist services, where that’s needed.

Access to a Mental Health platform, which offers a range of self-help videos, guides and articles to help improve your mental wellbeing. 

Our social committee arrange some fabulous events throughout the year for all staff to attend! This includes a Christmas Party, weekend walks, talent shows and quiz nights. 

All our employees can use the council-managed ‘Places Leisure’ centres (including Andover Leisure Centre or Romsey Rapids Sports Complex) at a discounted rate for the full premium membership on a 12-month contract. You can also receive 50% off pay as you go swim, gym and classes

KAARP offer a range of discounts and deals to local government staff, covering areas such as entertainment, shopping, travel, finance, health, insurance and motoring. These benefits can help to save money as well as enhance lifestyle! 

We have an arrangement with Simplyhealth which enables you to purchase a health cash plan at a discounted rate, providing access to healthcare you need, claiming back relevant treatment costs as well as offering rewards and discounts to stay healthy.

The council will reimburse the costs of an eye test for staff who use display screen equipment (DSE) and contribute towards glasses that are required for DSE use.

Free parking is available for all of our staff whilst at work and this is on-site at most of our locations.

This scheme allows employees to sacrifice a proportion of their gross salary to pay for a bicycle and any associated safety equipment which they intend to use as a means of transport to work and/or for use at work to get to appointments/site visits.

Employees who have successfully completed their probation period, may apply for a car loan.

Each year, we celebrate those employees who have reached 25 and 40 years’ service as part of a wider staff awards ceremony.

Life assurance (png, 87kb)The Council provide a free Life Assurance Scheme for all employees under 75 from your first day of employment. Details are provided during onboarding. This is in addition to the life assurance scheme benefit which is part of the local government pension scheme.