Activate: Pay progress and the civil service-bashing Farage
In her latest Activate column, PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote discusses PCS’s growing membership, the government’s pay remit guidance and the threat of Reform UK to members’ jobs, pensions, rights and public services.
We are living in turbulent times. The scenes on the streets of Southampton and Belfast in recent weeks should concern us all, with the rise of racist thuggery on a scale not seen in decades – and encouraged by irresponsible politicians and media barons.
The Labour government is looking more unstable by the day, from ministerial resignations to the uncertainty that has been caused by the Makerfield by-election.
There are increasing pressures on the public finances, with a cacophony of voices calling for cuts to public services to fund ever-increasing military expenditure.
In these uncertain times, members need a union more than ever. Perhaps that is why more people joined our union last year, swelling our membership to over 190,000. As general secretary, I am focused on working to secure a strong and resilient union that delivers for members.
The headline pay remit figure – of 3.5% for the civil service – is as high or higher than any other major public sector employer.
The current rate of inflation is 2.8%, but the government’s own forecast suggests that inflation will peak at 3.5% by the end of 2026. Even so, averaged over the year, that is an above-inflation increase in the pay remit.
The pay remit from the Cabinet Office also represents further progress in addressing low pay and restoring fairness across the civil service for our hard-working and dedicated members.
Through painstaking talks, we have secured important additional measures to tackle pay compression, improve career progression and strengthen consistency across departments.
That means establishing a 5% differential from AA to AO, and 5% from AO to EO, helping to eradicate the pay compression that has resulted from pay at those grades not keeping pace with rises in the National Living Wage.
Importantly, those additional flexibilities will be funded outside of the headline 3.5% figure in the remit guidance. So, grades AA to EO – our lowest paid members and most of our membership – will get more generous rises than the headline figure.
The threat of Reform
While this does not represent full pay restoration, or all our aims, it is a very substantial increase and does represent significant progress.
Ultimately it will be up to members whether that progress is significant enough for now, or whether we believe we can achieve more either through negotiations at the delegated level, or through industrial action.
The threats facing us as a union, and as a movement, are much bigger in the longer term. And that is why our recent annual delegate conference voted overwhelmingly to back my proposal for a surplus fund investment programme to make our union more resilient in the eventuality of a Reform government.
Reform UK, Nigel Farage’s party, has set out how they want to cut 70,000 civil service jobs, slash public sector pensions and further erode our public services.
They promise huge cuts to social security, and they want to rip up workers’ rights, the equality duty, and renters’ rights, too.
And we see they are prepared to whip up and align with racist thugs dedicated to sowing division. The threat of Reform and the far right is real, and we must be building alliances locally and nationally to counter their division and hate.