PCS welcomes civil service report that highlights low pay

PCS today welcomes the findings of a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report which calls on the UK government to properly address low civil service pay.

The PAC report’s findings demonstrate clearly why we are currently balloting almost 150,000 members in 171 government departments on industrial action*.

It confirms the issues that PCS has long campaigned on and consistently raised with ministers. Civil service pay has been eroded significantly in real terms for over a decade, lagging behind others in the public sector.

The report also supports the findings of our recently commissioned report on civil service pay, which found that civil servants’ wages were 5% above the average UK wage in the 1970s and 80s but today are 10% below the average.

Its recommendations, which include a call for the government to use its remit guidance to address this longstanding issue, must now be listened to by the Cabinet Office.

PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said:

“With a national ballot underway this report has confirmed, yet again, that low pay within the civil service is a chronic problem which continues to affect recruitment, retention and morale.

“PCS welcomes the recommendations on pay within the report and would urge ministers to think seriously before publishing their pay remit guidance for 2024-25.

“As we ballot our members over pay, pensions and jobs, this report is further evidence of the need for decent pay for our members as well as a new approach to pay bargaining which puts an end to pay inequality for good.”

ends

Read The Public Accounts Committee report.

Download a summary of the PCS-commissioned report on pay trends in the civil service by Dr Mark Williams from Queen Mary University, London.

*The PCS national ballot runs from March 18 to May 13 and includes all members working across the UK in the civil service and its related areas, except for members in the Scottish Devolved Sector, who will not be included in the ballot because they have reached a two-year settlement with the employer on pay and jobs.