Hundreds seek legal advice on Wolverhampton council equal pay claims

Equal Pay Legal estimates that at least 5,000 city council workers are eligible for claims.

It has so far been approached by almost 300 people. Eighty of those are teaching assistants.

It comes after an equal pay shake-up at the council that came into effect in April 2013 and saw 62 per cent of workers have their pay rate increased under the Single Status Agreement.

At the time, the local authority set aside £30m to fight and settle equal pay claims and reports from 2008 show it had already paid out £33m in compensation.

While the council will not discuss equal pay claims or reveal how many it has settled as it is confidential, £18.7m was provisionally set aside in 2013/14. A draft statement of accounts for the year 2014/15 says the council has established a provision for £12.4m for the compensation.

The Single Status scheme was drawn up to iron out decades of pay inequality between men and women, and despite pay rates going up two years ago, workers may still be owed money for the years they were underpaid - even the thousands of workers whose pay was increased in 2013.

Equal Pay Legal director Darren Smith said some Wolverhampton claims have already advanced to the stage of the council making offers, although for confidentiality and legal reasons, he couldn't say how many or how much they are worth.

However, he did say: "The values vary from claim to claim, but quite a lot are worth tens of thousands of pounds.

"It is clear there is still quite a large number of people who were Wolverhampton council workers who still have equal pay claims - our best guess is at least 5,000 have legitimate claims."