FDA demands action on Fiscals' pay - 30 August 2002

The senior civil servants’ union the FDA today demanded the Crown Office take urgent action over unfair pay, after a comparability study showed a pay gap of up to £10,000 between pay levels in the Procurator Fiscal Service and other comparable lawyer jobs in the civil service and wider public sector. The comparability study was agreed between the Crown Office and FDA after the rejection of a three-year pay deal in 2001. The exercise was overseen by ACAS and carried out by independent consultants. The report indicates that the role of Procurator Fiscal Depute, the main lawyer grade in the Procurator Fiscal Service, is directly comparable with legal jobs in the Scottish Executive, Crown Prosecution Service and Customs and Excise. Pay levels in the Procurator Fiscal Service are, however, significantly below those of these other departments. Crucially, the report highlights that the pay system in the PFS results in experienced lawyers being paid little more than new recruits. This results in a pay gap of up to £10,000 when they are compared with lawyers of a similar experience in the other departments. Dave Penman, National Officer at FDA with responsibility for the PFS said: "This report vindicates our position that lawyers in the Procurator Fiscal Service have been grossly undervalued and are doing work that is comparable with other legal jobs within the Scottish Executive and the rest of the civil service. The Crown Office has consistently refused to accept this but now we have the evidence, produced by independent consultants, to back this up. "The Lord Advocate promised our members last year that if the report highlighted this difference he would use his best endeavours to secure the funding necessary to put it right. He now has to make good on his promise. If the PFS is to recruit and retain talented staff, they must be prepared to reward them fairly. "The Scottish Executive now faces the position where lawyers in the PFS are paid significantly lower salaries than those within the Scottish Executive itself doing comparable work, and those doing similar work in England and Wales. There is no justice in that." Helen Nisbet, Secretary of the Procurator Fiscal Society section of the FDA said: "We are in the perverse position where our members are paid significantly less for their prosecution work for Customs and Excise than the lawyers carrying out the same prosecutions in England and Wales. "Even within Scotland, we have a situation where one part of the Scottish Executive the 'Fiscal Service' is paying its lawyers much less than the rest of the Scottish Executive. This is grossly unfair and will only continue to build resentment. We have raised these issues for years with the Crown Office, but on deaf ears. We hope that with this irrefutable evidence and a new senior management team in the PFS, there will be recognition of the levels of discontent felt by our members over this issue. Senior management must will come forward with proposals quickly to put this right." Ends