SCS PAY: SENIOR SALARIES REVIEW BODY REPORT 2003

TheGovernment today announced that it had accepted the Senior Salaries Review Bodyreport which recommends pay awards in the SCS with effect from 1 April 2003 andalso for the Judiciary, senior ranks in the armed forces, and Ministers andMPs.

Themain recommendations for the SCS are:

Anincrease of 2.25% for all fixed points on the pay ranges for each of the threepay bands below Permanent Secretary.

Individualbase pay awards ranging from 0% to 9% as set out in the matrix below.

Thepot for non-consolidated bonuses will increase to 3.8% of each departments SCSpay bill.

Aminimum non-consolidated bonus payment of 3% of salary or 2,500 whichever isthe higher.

PermanentSecretaries new pay range will be 118,750 to 251,500.

Pay Bands

From1 April 2003 the new pay ranges and target rates will be:

Pay Band	Minimum	Progression Target Rate (PTR)	Higher Performance Target Rate (HPTR)	Recruitment & Performance Ceiling (RPC)
1	52,403	72,841	81,749	110,047
1A	60,788	81,749	91,181	120,527
2	72,316	97,470	116,335	151,969
3	89,085	126,816	148,825	188,651

Forthose departments offering a London target rate the pay band minima andprogression target rates in Band 1 and 1A will be 3,500 higher than shownabove.

Pay Matrix 1 April 2003

Performance Tranche	Position in Pay Range
Performance Tranche	Lower Zone	Upper Zone	Premium Zone	Upper Premium Zone	Above RPC *()**
Top Tranche (25%):	9%	8%	5%	4%	4%
Middle Tranche (65-70%):	5%	4%	2.25%	2.25%	2.25%
Bottom Tranche (5-10%): Satisfactory	0 to 2.25%	0 to 2.25%	0 to 2.25%	0 to 2.25%	0 to 2.25%
Bottom Tranche (5-10%): Unsatisfactory	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0

(*) Pay awards above theRecruitment and Performance Ceiling are non-consolidated

Thisyears awards are disappointing. TheReview Body has awarded a pay bill increase of 3% at a time when inflationstands at 2.9% and is likely to remain at that level for the first half of2003. Whilst the matrix illustratesthat a majority of members are likely to receive at least 4% increase in earnings,a significant minority will see their standard of living actually fall,particularly those above the PTR.Whilst an increase in the size of bonuses is welcome given theGovernments determination to use non consolidated payments, only about half ofall members will receive a bonus and they are not pensionable.

Thesemodest increases come after a short period of more generous increases for manySenior Civil Servants, and public servants more generally, after public sectorpay fell increasingly behind the level of private sector increases during theboom years of the mid to late 1990s.The real increases in public sector pay over the past two years havebeen to a very low base. The Governmentis now exerting significant pressure on the Review Bodies to put the lid backonce again on public sector pay just at a time when it needs to motivate andencourage public servants to deliver its ambitious programme of public servicereform. It is the Senior Civil Servicethat the Government expects to lead and deliver not only civil service reform butalso much of that wider agenda. Theproblem is that the Government lacks a coherent approach to public sector payrelying instead on short-term policies of start-stop.

Equal Pay

TheFDA has argued over recent years for an equality audit in the SCS, and theReview Body agreed this in last years report.That is now underway and the FDA is in dialogue with the CabinetOffice. The intention is that theoutcomes will be delivered to the Review Body in April. This mirrors the audits being conducted forstaff in grades below the SCS in all departments.

Progression

The awards offer no improvement in the already inadequaterates of progression and we will raise this again later this year with theReview Body.

Recruitment

TheReview Body report offers some worrying evidence about the quality of outsideapplicants to SCS open competitions. Itstates that while most posts are filled, 40% of the fields were described asaverage or poor. Some 18 months ago the pay comparability surveycommissioned by the Office of Manpower Economics demonstrated that SCS pay wassignificantly lower than the level of not only private sector but also manypublic sector comparators. At a timewhen the Government is seeking to increase mobility into the civil service, SCSpay will remain uncompetitive.

Work Life Balance

TheFDA has raised the problem of work life balance in the SCS with the Review Bodyfor a number of years but unfortunately the Review Body has been unwilling toaddress it. The current report arguesin effect that work life balance is a problem in the wider economy at theselevels and therefore the civil service should not expect to be treated anydifferently. It further argues that ifthe cause of work life balance problems lies in a culture of long hours, thisis one that SCS members themselves are well placed to address, completelymissing the point about how and why such cultures continue. The FDA believes that real problems continueto exist and will press both Ministers and departmental Management Boards toensure that real action is taken to tackle them.

Thefull SSRB report is available on the FDA website www.fda.org.uk in the news area.