PUBLIC SECTOR PAY
Ministers demand pay freeze for senior public servants
Chancellor Alistair Darling has recommended a one-year pay freeze for 40,000 of the most senior public servants in 2010/11. He has written to salary review bodies urging them to freeze the pay of senior NHS managers, GPs, members of the judiciary and heads of quangos.
In addition, about 700,000 middle-ranking public servants, including hospital doctors, dentists and prison officers, will fare a little better, with a rise of between 0% and 1%.
The recommendation will be put to the independent pay review bodies in the next few weeks.
A Treasury source told the BBC the pay freeze will “override” the final 12 months of a three-year pay deal for senior public sector workers. This means the salary rise expected next summer by GPs, judges and NHS managers will not now go ahead.
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Devolution
According to the BBC's political correspondent Ben Wright, the Treasury has also said the pay freezes are “devolution sensitive”. So the freeze for GPs applies to England and Wales, and senior civil servants who work in national organisations - such as an HM Revenue & Customs worker in Scotland - are also subject to the restriction. But if someone works in the Scottish health department the pay freeze does not apply.
No plan to re-open other long-term deals
The Treasury recommendation does not affect teachers, nurses and police officers who are party to three-year pay deals which come to an end in 2010. No recommendation about pay for the armed forces has been made.
A final word
"Britain's public servants are invaluable. But if we want to halve the deficit over four years and protect frontline services, we have to make tough but realistic decisions on pay." - Treasury Minister Liam Byrne.
"It will be these senior civil servants who will be charged over the next two years with taking forward the government's very difficult programme of austerity across the public services . . . and this is a very poor signal indeed to them." - FDA General Secretary Jonathan Baume, talking to Sky News.
Want to know more?
“Public sector pay freeze ordered by Alistair Darling”, The Guardian, 6 October 2009: www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/06/public-sector-pay-freeze-order
“Public sector workers face pay freeze”, The Daily Telegraph, 6 October 2009: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6263285/Public-sector-workers-face-pay-freeze.html#