A Director at crisis-hit care company, Sirona, takes home more in pension contributions than a care worker earns in a year, a report from Companies House has revealed. Records publicly available from Companies House show that in the financial year 2016–2017, the highest paid Director at Sirona received £154,138 in pay and Sirona’s contribution to their Pension Scheme was £17,332.

This is higher than the annual salary of the majority of care workers affected by the proposed new rotas that have seen workers walk out on strike through June and July. Sirona says the dispute centres around moving staff working at residential homes and Extra Care facilities in Bath, Keynsham and Midsomer Norton from paid to unpaid breaks when they work more than six hours, which it says is consistent with other providers in the sector.

Another 24-hour strike began at 8 a.m. on Tuesday this week. The not-for-profit social enterprise is now preparing to cover a series of 25 consecutive walk-outs in an escalation of the action, including a series of strikes between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., as well as 24-hour and 12-hour disruption.

Talks have been ongoing since the initial strike on 6th June between UNISON and Sirona, but have failed to produce a settlement, with Sirona needing to save £170,000. UNISON has proposed an alternative to saving the money by lowering Sirona’s high spend on agency staff, a reduction in top management costs, and a small cash injection from the Better Care Fund. Sirona rejected the plan at a recent meeting and decided to press on with rota and pay changes.

John Drake, UNISON Regional Organiser, said: “We understand the pressure on Adult Social Care across the UK, but it is immoral that one of Sirona’s Directors is paid more than the Prime Minister, and they are proposing taking money away from the lowest paid in the organisation.

“An advert for an Extra Care Support Worker currently on the Sirona website shows it would take that worker over twelve years to earn the same as the highest paid Director. It is time for B&NES Council, Sirona, the Clinical Commissioning Group, and local Members of Parliament to get together to seriously look at resolving this dispute.

“The 120 care workers taking strike action desperately want to be back at work, caring for the residents, professionally, compassionately and with dedication, but are determined that they should not be the employees bearing the brunt of yet more financial shortfalls in the care sector generally, and Sirona specifically.”

Janet Rowse, Chief Executive, said: “We are bitterly disappointed that a second offer has been rejected. We knew that these changes could have a financial impact on some staff, and although an earlier offer of a one-off payment was rejected, we felt it was important we tried again to bring industrial action to a close.

“We therefore made another offer to pay all affected staff a one-off payment. The figure was based on any financial difference between an individual’s current rota and proposed rota for a twelve month period if they elected not to work additional shifts to make up their hours. This means if the difference for an individual was £50 per month, we would have paid that person £600 as an ex-gratia payment with their August 2018 pay.

“Now that it has been rejected by UNISON, we have no option but to impose the changes to bring this difficult situation to a conclusion and start to rebuild our relationships. I am genuinely saddened that it has come to this; I believe that we have been fair and reasonable within the resources available to us for these services. We have done our best to accommodate staff requests, including protecting alternate weekends off and ensuring the opportunity for staff to work additional shifts to protect their income.

“We have always been really sorry that the action we needed to take to address a gap in funding for these services impacted on staff. We have incredible teams working in our care services.”

Speaking about the recent criticism from UNISON about top management salaries, Janet Rowse said: “Discussing the pay figures for senior staff is a distraction from the several attempts which we have made to bring the dispute to a close, and finding a way forward should be our focus.

“We have been clear that management and overhead costs have already been reduced; the package for senior staff within Sirona is at the lower end of the market.

“Our priority remains the safety and welfare of our residents, and we are now taking steps to implement these changes to bring this difficult situation to a conclusion.”Simon Knighton, Chairman of Sirona care & Health, issued a statement following a release by Unison which claimed a Director was earning more than the Prime Minister.He said: ""I am appalled that a trade dispute has resulted in personal attacks on my Directors which are unfair and inaccurate. This is an unpleasant tactic, distracting from the many efforts we have made to resolve the industrial action which have included offering substantial one-off payments to staff to recognise the impact this would have for some of them. All of these offers have been rejected."Instead of trying to work with us to find a solution, the union is focussing on issuing inaccurate information which isn't beneficial to their members, our staff or our service users."Our Directors lead an organisation of 1,193 staff, with an annual turnover of over £65m. Together with my Non-Executive Directors, I regularly review their pay and benefits and I can assure everyone that they sit in the lowest 25% of salaries for comparable organisations. The figures shown in our annual accounts include salary, employers' costs, such as the national insurance payments we need to make and the pension contribution made by Sirona which Unison is claiming are on top of the wrongly quoted figure. "My team could earn significantly more in the private sector, but have chosen to work for Sirona and dedicate themselves to public service. I am not prepared to stand back and watch them undeservedly vilified when I know just how hard they work for the communities Sirona serves."I would urge the Union to spend their energies working with us to find a resolution."