On Friday 2nd June 2023, the Cabinet Office, which oversees matters that affect the entire Civil Service, not just individual Departments or agencies, published an addendum to the Treasury Pay Remit. This remit was originally published in March and outlined a cap on average pay rises of between 4.5 and 5%. The new addendum now adds the flexibility to make a one-off £1,500 payment. We await further details of the offer and what it means for PCS members. It appears that the £1,500 per full-time member of staff regardless of grade that the Cabinet Office has announced, is not new money. It is money that will have to be found within existing budgets. This amounts to tens of millions of pounds being cut from other areas even in medium sized departments.
Even if it is new money, however, and even if the £1,500 is an additional payment on top of average pay awards of up to 5%, this still does not meet the most basic demand of the PCS campaign for a 10% pay award. This pay claim was designed to cover the rising cost of living in 2022-23, which was over 10% at a time when many areas only received a 2-3% pay rise. Our pay ultimately fell by around 10% up to June 2022, taking into account the pay rise we received compared to rising prices averaging 13.7%. Forecast inflation for the year up to June 2023 is above 11%. The total fall in our salaries over two years, relative to price rises, is approximately 22%. An AO receiving a 5% pay award plus £1,500 would only win back 12.5%, just over half what they’ve lost. For an EO it would be worse; only 9.5% won back against 22% lost. In addition, we are still paying more for our pensions than we should be (to the value of about 2% of our salary every year), getting less from our pensions and retiring later than ever. The £1,500 lump some being put forward by the government will not affect our pension values either; this amount will be non-consolidated, i.e., not included in the pay that is reckonable when calculating pensions.
While the government are often indifferent to the needs of civil servants and to the needs of users of the public services we provide, they are not stupid. This is an attempt to split off the lowest paid, many of whom will also have had a wage lift of around 5% when the national living wage rose – still not reaching the value of what they’ve lost through price rises, from the union’s national campaign.
Interestingly, this offer appears to fall some way short of information leaked to union pay negotiators earlier in 2023, that the government were considering a pay remit of 7% in addition to a one-off payment. This is likely to reflect the unwillingness of the leadership of PCS to mount serious national strike action and action short of strikes in addition to their preferred tactic of paid, targeted action. A National Executive Committee meeting is scheduled for Monday 5th June and we await what further news this brings.
At this stage, however, our view is that the campaign must continue – the actions instructed by PCS Conference, including re-ballots in big areas like DWP, must be undertaken. The leadership of the union must not duck out of a serious campaign based on this offer.
PCS Broad Left Network 