Public pay curbs threaten staffing crisis, say unions

Library

Public pay curbs threaten staffing crisis, say unions

Civil service unions have condemned the government’s ‘broken’ pay policy towards its own staff and launched a joint call for a fair new way of deciding the pay of 600,000 civil and public servants.



They did so as they released a major study warning that public sector pay policy is about to re-create the morale and staffing problems that the government inherited in 1997 and which its modernisation programme was designed to overcome.

The Council of Civil Service Unions wrote to Andy Burnham, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, highlighting the study’s key finding that civil service pay has been hit harder than any other part of the public sector.

"Current policies are likely to widen the pay gap between the public and private sectors. In our view this approach is not only unsustainable but will fail to deliver the government’s goals of public service modernisation", said the three general secretaries: Mark Serwotka (PCS), Paul Noon (Prospect) and Jonathan Baume (FDA).

The report commissioned by the CCSU from Incomes Data Services shows that:

  • Treasury pay limits have created a widening pay gap between the public and the private sectors that is once again driving catch-up pressures from public servants.
  • Average earnings in public administration stood at 1.8% in the year to May, compared to 3.6% in the whole economy and 3.2% in the whole of the public sector.
  • Pay delegation in the civil service has led to widely differing rates of pay between departments and agencies for broadly similar jobs.
  • Treasury pay guidance for the civil service is contradictory, notably the demands that salary levels should be sufficient to recruit, retain and motivate staff and comply with the 2% pay and inflation target.
  • The Treasury has failed to deliver on the government’s commitment to equality and its promise of a more rational system to reward specialist skills.
  • The argument that public pay rises drive up inflation does not stand scrutiny as public sector pay is set by reference to rises in the cost of living over the previous 12 months, and so is backward, not forward-looking.

Without a commitment to replace the current broken pay system, unions warn that recruitment, retention and morale problems will create growing industrial unrest among members over the rest of the 2007 pay round and beyond. The civil service has already seen more industrial action in 2007 than any year since the national pay strike of 1981.

On behalf of 313,000 members, Mark Serwotka, PCS General Secretary, said: "This report nails the lie that public sector wages are a major factor in fuelling inflation. Rising housing costs, fuel and food prices are what lies behind inflation. It is unacceptable that the government should drive down the pay of people earning little more than the minimum wage and hide behind the excuse of inflation.

"As staff in the Department for Work and Pensions have shown, civil servants won’t accept below inflation pay. The government needs to come clean about inflation and begin to tackle the unfair and unjust nature of civil service pay."

On behalf of 102,000 members, Paul Noon, Prospect General Secretary, said: "Public servants are the last to benefit from an economic upturn and the first to suffer when the economy runs into trouble. This report shows that public service pay is running well behind the private sector, and that civil servants’ pay is the hardest hit of all. On top of that, the civil service is divided into hundreds of pay units, with crazy differences between the rates for staff in different departments and agencies.

"We appeal to the government to come to its senses and negotiate a new deal for the civil service, as it has done for the NHS and education. That is the only way to avoid a spate of industrial action caused by the unfairness and hardship built into the present system."

On behalf of 16,000 members, Jonathan Baume, FDA General Secretary, said: "The government’s boom and bust approach to civil service pay over the past 10 years is as unnecessary as it is damaging. Despite claims from the Treasury, the IDS report confirms that public sector salary increases do not drive up inflation or pose a threat to the economy. Therefore government has no good reason to overrule the recommendations of the independent pay review bodies and must award public servants adequately.

"The report is also incontrovertible evidence of how far civil service salaries have fallen behind those in the private and wider public sector. The government is currently at risk of equal pay claims by awarding external recruits 26% more than career senior civil servants for the same job."

A copy of the CCSU letter to the Treasury is attached. Copies of the 65-page IDS report are available from www.prospect.org.uk/page/3629