UK ministers have provided junior and mid-ranking civil servants a one-off cost of £1,500 in a push to finish a long-running dispute over pay and jobs.
In a letter seen by the Monetary Occasions, Simon Case, cupboard secretary and the UK’s most senior mandarin, informed civil service colleagues on Friday that the lump sum was “in recognition of your public service and the challenges to the price of dwelling”.
The deal would additionally embrace a freeze on present redundancy compensation ranges till 2025 and a pledge to keep away from obligatory redundancies “the place doable”, Case famous in his letter, which was cosigned by Alex Chisholm, everlasting secretary on the Cupboard Workplace.
The proposals come as ministers push to finish the most important wave of public sector strikes in many years, through which lots of of 1000’s of civil servants have walked out over calls for for greater pay amid the cost of living crisis.
Case’s letter adopted conferences earlier on Friday between Cupboard Workplace minister Jeremy Quin and leaders of the three primary civil service commerce unions, constructing on pay will increase outlined beforehand.
The federal government in April set out plans to permit Whitehall departments to award employees a mean pay rise of 4.5 per cent, with an additional 0.5 per cent enhance for lower-paid staff. However the Public and Industrial Companies union, Prospect and the FDA all criticised the deal as considerably worse than settlements provided to different public sector employees.
In keeping with official civil service workforce information as much as March final yr, the one-off £1,500 cost for the 2023-24 monetary yr would apply to roughly 400,000 full-time staff and 100,000 part-time employees, who’re in line to obtain a prorated cost. Pay for senior officers is set by a unique course of.
Officers stated the proposed cost factored in equity for the taxpayer and UK prime minister Rishi Sunak’s promise to halve inflation this yr.
Responding to the supply, the PCS stated on Friday that the Cupboard Workplace had “listened and responded to the considerations of our members after . . . essentially the most industrial motion within the union’s historical past on this dispute”. It added that its nationwide government committee would meet on June 5 to scrutinise the deal.
Mike Clancy, normal secretary of Prospect, which last week called off a strike deliberate for subsequent week to permit for talks with Quin, additionally welcomed the deal.
He stated that whereas walkouts by his members had “been vital in getting up to now”, the supply “in precept addresses the three points on the coronary heart of this dispute” and can be consulted on.
In the meantime Dave Penman, normal secretary of the FDA, which represents senior officers, stated the union’s considerations had “been heard” after it threatened to poll members for nationwide walkouts over pay for the primary time in 40 years.
Describing the lump sum as “a big amount of cash”, he stated: “For the primary time in a few years, we’ve got reached a tangible, constructive consequence for the civil service which compares effectively with the remainder of the general public sector.”
Penman added that the FDA’s government committee would meet on June 8 to formally think about the package deal and its paused poll for industrial motion.
Quin stated he was “decided that civil servants are rewarded pretty for the important work they do throughout the nation” and happy with unions’ “constructive engagement”.
