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Pay problems reach crisis point

25 August 2010

The government's pledge to cut public servants' pay has provoked an angry reaction from PCS members.

The emergency budget this summer introduced a two-year pay freeze for all public servants earning over £21,000. Those earning £21,000 or less will receive an increase of at least £250 consolidated for each of the two years.

For all civil servants £250 would represent an increase of less than 2% while inflation is currently at 5.1%. So both those whose pay has been frozen and those receiving £250 are having their pay cut in real terms.

This announcement came at the same time as planned cuts of up to 40% in departments, attacks on redundancy terms to make it cheaper to cut jobs, and a clear signal that pensions are next in line.

Civil servants have already suffered pay restraint over recent years with average increases at half the rate of inflation, while many at the top of their pay range have had their pay frozen.

Civil servants are paid less than workers in the private sector, despite what the mainstream media would have you believe.

Office for National Statistics figures show average civil service pay is £22,850 compared to £24,970 in the private sector. A study by Incomes Data Services shows that when you compare civil service salaries at admin officer level they are 21% lower than in the private sector. At executive officer level pay is 18% less than in the private sector.

Unfair and unequal

Not only are civil servants poorly paid, they are unfairly paid. A civil servant in one part of the civil service can be paid at a wildly different rate from a colleague in another part of the service. For example, an executive officer at the maximum in the Veterinary Laboratories Agency, an agency of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), can earn 50% more than an executive officer at the max another Defra agency, Cefas (the Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science).

PCS has long been arguing for these inequalities to be addressed by reintroducing a single national pay framework for the whole civil service, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies.

The coalition government has established an Efficiency and Reform Group which will be looking at, among other things, a more simplified pay system. PCS has submitted its arguments on national pay to this review.

The proposed pay freeze will threaten progression in many areas and again makes civil servants the poor relations of other areas of the economy. For many public servants, progression arrangements are clearly contractual and have always been funded separately from cost-of-living increases. Also, in the private sector many companies, including BT and Nissan, which enforced pay freezes last year excluded progression from the freeze.

For a long time civil servants have suffered because of the system whereby the amount of money for pay has to include progression payments. This means that cost of living increases have had to complete with progression and many on the max have suffered pay freezes to allow progression to be paid for.

This should not be the case; it is not the case for most other areas of the economy.

Let’s campaign for better

PCS has made clear to the government its opposition to the pay freeze and is working with other public sector unions to oppose the attacks on our members’ pay. It is also seeking to influence key decision makers, such as MPs, and the media through regular briefings to challenge the myths on civil service pay.

Members are urged to write to and meet with their local MPs to challenge these myths. And there’s more you can do, such as ringing into radio debates, writing to your local newspapers and emailing into discussions on pay.

Pay is just one of the many areas where members are facing attacks and PCS will be coordinating a campaign to challenge all of the attacks on pay, jobs and pensions along with other public sector unions.