Are senior managers in health authorities right to have misgivings about their new pay scheme? Dolly Chadda reports

We need the work this will involve like we need a hole in the head.' That was the response of one senior health authority manager to the introduction this month of a new pay system for senior HA managers.

His is not a lone voice. Worries about the extra time and effort that will be required to implement the new arrangements have been widely expressed.

No one seems to doubt that the old senior manager pay scheme - based on a 30-point pay spine - badly needed replacing.

SMP is discredited and it is now widely acknowledged that performance related pay, which it made mandatory, has failed to live up to expectations as a great motivating force.

So why the disquiet over moves to replace it? Managers and unions say it is not the right time to embark on such a task.

Other concerns include fears that the new system will cut earning potential, be divisive and be used to cap pay costs.

Unison believes dismantling SMP now is 'bizarre' and that the new system - optional for existing employees but applying to all new appointments and promotions from 1 April - could turn out to be an expensive waste of time.

Unison national officer Alastair Henderson says the revision of SMP is four years too late.

Given that talks are ongoing about a national pay framework for the NHS, which could include managers, it would have been better to wait for the outcome of those discussions, he argues.

The union fears, too, that earning potential could be cut under the new arrangements.

They will cover all HA staff earning£16,000 or more, which could include health promotion and junior finance staff, as well as chief officers of community health councils who are paid at the lower end of the pay spine.

Once primary care groups are up and running, management staff in groups operating at levels one and two are also expected to be covered by the new arrangements.

Assessing posts and deciding at what point to place them in the ranges will be an onerous task.

Anita Pisani, human resources adviser to Cambridge and Huntingdon HA, says a year has been granted to implement the new system and the HA has not yet decided how it will proceed.

It could take the quick option and place posts in the new system based on salaries now attached to them. Or it could use job evaluation to 'weight' posts which, she admits, would involve a heavy workload.

Mike Bailey, finance director of Sandwell HA, agrees. He warns: 'If time and effort is not put into this, we will have a system no better than we have at present.

'If you are going to do it, it has to be done properly. But the worry is with everything else on the agenda, PCGs to set up and the white paper to implement, will we have time?'

Mr Bailey says his HA has about 50 staff - 40 per cent of the total - on SMP.

Doing a job evaluation for all of them would be a sizeable task.

One HA manager, who asked not to be named, was sceptical about whether the new system would bring improvements.

He joined the HA from a trust which had brought in a remarkably similar system, he says. The trust, too, had five pay bands, with a minimum, maximum and mid-point salary.

He believes there was no doubt, in the trust's case, that the scheme was brought in as a way of capping costs.

'This leads me to be slightly sceptical, ' he says. 'It also seems ironic that having rejected local pay we are now bringing in a system which will allow for considerable flexibility.'

Karen Dunwoodie, chief officer of Wakefield CHC, adds: 'At the moment there are vast differences in the pay of CHC chief officers throughout the country. Here was a chance to address that, but I fear it will create even more fragmentation.'

The NHS Executive is standing firm.

A spokesman says that it made sense to replace the SMP scheme now because all the work on the new system had already been done, and it was widely consulted on.

He insists that its introduction will not prejudice talks about a national pay framework.

How the new system works

Five flexible pay ranges.

Local managers have flexibility to place employees in these ranges.

Scrapping of mandatory performance-related pay scheme, but health authorities can, if they wish, link pay to performance.

Move away from short-term and rolling contracts to permanent contracts.

Enhanced role for remuneration committees.