Why we need an independent pay review body for delegated grades
Assistant General Secretary Lauren Crowley outlines the FDA’s response to this week’s pay announcements – the publication of the annual pay remit guidance for delegated civil service grades in UK government departments, and the SCS pay award – and shares the FDA’s long-term plans for civil service pay.
The FDA has welcomed the decision by the government and the Cabinet Office to respond to representations we have made on the need to treat civil servants comparably with the wider public sector, and allow departments to make a fair award which recognises recent economic pressures.
As we have set out repeatedly – to ministers, officials, in our annual evidence to the SSRB, in last year’s State of Pay report and publicly – the systems for making decisions on civil service pay are fundamentally broken and outdated. This has led to significant issues with recruitment and retention, widespread low morale, and substantial real-term pay cuts that have had deeply-felt impact on civil servants.
For a number of years, the FDA been campaigning for an independent pay review body for delegated pay grades. Following our State of Pay report published in October 2023, we commissioned a piece of research alongside Prospect with Incomes Data Research (IDR), to analyse pay review bodies across the public sector and understand how they work and their effectiveness.
We are now publishing this research, and launching the next phase of our pay strategy.
These announcements have shown that an independent body of experts looking objectively at the evidence – and importantly, considering not just economic pressures, but the impact of recruitment and retention, churn and morale – produces a better result for our members. We believe that strengthening the review body process and extending this to delegated grades will deliver better outcomes for members, employers and the public over the longer term.
Based on our research and members’ insights, we have begun the process of shaping proposals for government on how an independent pay review body for grades below SCS could work. We will look to develop and shape a proposal which builds on existing pay review bodies, reflects the dynamics of a diverse civil service with different pay pressures, and strengthens the negotiating power for unions once a pay review body has made its recommendations. We will also continue to work with devolved administrations to establish the best long-term solutions in those areas.
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