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You can't have it both ways

28 July 2010

We are asking DfT Agency chief executives to ignore the pay freeze or agree that DfT is one equal pay area.

This request was sent to the "Chiefs" on 26 July. We wrote:

You will know of the DVLA equal pay case. We are claiming that women Executive Officers in DVLA should have pay parity with male Driving Examiners in DSA.

The fundamental defence of the Crown in this case is that Ministers and the Treasury have no legal right to set pay rates and pay increases within agencies. They can set broad budgets but once this is done, it is for agencies to set their own rates and settle their own pay arrangements.

With the two year freeze, DfT bargaining units have been told not to (?)negotiate annually their own rates of pay. Further Ministers have instructed that staff over £21,000 FTE, unless they have a contractual entitlement, will receive no pay increase; bargaining units have been instructed to pay staff below that figure at least £250.

These instructions are incompatible with the fundamental defence of the Crown in the DVLA equal pay case i.e. you cannot obey the pay freeze and still maintain that you have freedom to settle your own pay rates.

Further, within DfT itself you have unilaterally changed the TRA processes across all bargaining units despite the fact that in some agencies TRA policy and process has been negotiated as part of pay settlements. Clearly delegation cannot exist if DfT are able to make such unilateral changes.

Therefore we invite you to either (a) enter into real pay negotiations with the Union and disregard the pay freeze announced by the Government (in keeping with the fundamental defence of the Crown in the DVLA equal pay case) or (b) to accept that you are bound by the detailed pay instructions (the pay freeze) and hence agree that equal pay cases can be taken between a DfT agency and your agency.

We will take a non reply as agreement with (a) above; consequently we will ask for dates for the first pay negotiation meeting.

Highways Agency (HA)

The pay situation in HA is different as staff are covered by a three year settlement that ends this year. In our letter to the Chief Executive of that agency we ended by saying:

Of course this year is the final one of the imposed pay settlement. In 2011 the Highways Agency will either (a) enter into real pay negotiations with the Union and disregard the pay freeze announced by the Government (in keeping with the fundamental defence of the Crown in the DVLA equal pay case) or (b) accept it is bound by the detailed pay instructions (the pay freeze) and hence agree that equal pay cases can be taken between a DfT agency and your agency.

DfT, Cabinet Office and Treasury officials were explicit when giving testimony at the equal pay case that Ministers could not give the sort of explicit orders that they in fact have given, in imposing the pay freeze.

The Union is happy for the “Chiefs” to agree that they are not bound by the pay freeze and start real pay talks with us or to agree that the defence given in the equal pay case can no longer stand; what they cannot do is be bound by Ministerial instructions concerning the pay freeze while at the same time claim that Ministers cannot give such instructions.


 

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