Nearly 65% of Prospect members voted in the ballot which opened three weeks ago and close to 80% a ratio of 4:1 of members rejected the offer.
The offer to staff working across the MoJ covered five years. Staff were offered 3% for the first three years followed by 1% in the fourth and fifth year.
However, working hours would increase to 38 hours a week from a mix of 35 to 37 hours.
The above Treasury guidance increase of 3% relied on a business case made by the MOJ that any pay rise would be given at no extra cost and would be paid for out of existing staffing budgets.
This rational resulted in proposals to change a broad set of terms and conditions including: increasing working hours, reducing allowances and reducing paid overtime to a flat single time rate.
Travel and subsistence rates were also proposed to be reduced which would have meant changes such as the overnight allowance being reduced to £9 from £23 and mileage rates being reduced to 25p per mile from 35p per mile.
Other changes included scrapping the London allowance and replacing it with a non-consolidated non-pensionable payment of £500 in the third year of the deal, followed by £1000 in years four and five.
Occupational sick pay was also in line to be reduced to a maximum of five months full pay and five months half pay for all staff, many staff currently terms are a maximum of 6 months full pay and 6 months half pay.
The proposals also include the an exercise to regrade the top pay band by splitting it in two and also included adopting/going back to the standard civil service grading classification. This has caused a huge amount of uncertainty for this group of staff.
Prospect negotiations officer Brian Harris said: “During the course of the negotiations Prospect raised a number of concerns about the length of the five year deal, the allowances that were being removed, flat rate overtime and other significant changes that were being made to staff contracts.”
“Our members have overwhelmingly voted to reject this offer as the uncertainty and price of changes to terms and conditions were too severe for our members. We will be going back to the MoJ to discuss the next steps after such a clear decision to reject the offer by our members.”