Osborne to scrap national public sector pay rates

[Donna K Babbs]

"Chancellor George Osborne is expected to reveal plans to scrap national pay rates for public sector workers in next Wednesday's Budget.
It comes after Treasury research found they earn on average eight percent more than their private sector counterparts in England and Wales.

Local factors, such as the cost of living and commercial pay rates, are now set to be taken into account.

The move would see a teacher in Sunderland earning less than a colleague in Surrey, where bills are generally higher.

Regional pay rates for up to 140,000 civil servants could be brought in as early as next month, it has been reported.

The Public and Commercial Services union has said it will oppose any such plans."


This could be interesting. Hopefully it's safe to expect that the military would not be affected but who knows?

[VinRouge]

Seeing as we dont pick our at work address, I Would say not a chance. I actually think its a great idea, but not as good an idea as reducing back office civil service staff by another 20 percent.

People could get round it by living in the mess and commute south every weekend. Unless the government expect to pick up full legal fees every 2 year posting.

[Pontius Navigator]

I detect the law of unforeseen consequences kicking in here.

It will depend on how large a particular pay area is. I could see some people drifting towards the higher paid jobs to the detriment of the poorer areas.

Even if uniformed personnel are exempt, what of their wives? A wife with a secure CS/NHS job paid X will not want to swap to an area paying X- with the knock on effect to her pension rights.

A nurse already gets hit as they often start a new job at base rate.

However I see the initial plan is only for a few lower paid in DVLA and Job Centres. Will the minimum wage also become regionalised?

[Maker's Name]

Do you think the New Employment Model might change that view? Difficult to say without the detail of either scheme - however if there is an opportunity for Govt to save money I wouldn't be surprised if the Armed Forces were included in this in the future.

[langleybaston]

I am not up to date with current practice, but, "in my day" there were a substantial number of civil servants officially and in fact "mobile grades", as in my area, the Met. Office, where the postings were compulsory and frequent: not quite on a military time scale but I averaged 3 years per posting over 41 years, with moves chained together like:

RAF Uxbridge, Harrow, Dunstabl'e Gatwick' RAF Nicosia' RAF Leeming' RAF Topcliffe' RAF Guetersloh, RAF Finningley, Bracknell, Shinfield Park, JHQ Rheindahlen, RAF Bawtry, Leeds, Bracknell, Cardiff, JHQ again and RAF Brize Norton.
That is leaving out all detachments, which, in the learning phase of a career, are very frequent.

Unintended consequences indeed if ANY mobile public servants fall within the scheme, in that many long-term expenses are not dependant on location: university fees, car purchase an obvious two for example.

[AARON O'DICKYDIDO]

So, does this mean that MPs who have a main home in their northern constituency and another home in London will switch in order to make sure that they get the higher salary?

No doubt they will be outside of this ruling.


Aaron.

[waco]

Well.......thats another nail in the UK.

Welsh and Scots get a pay cut........thats thousands if not millions of lost votes at the referendum...........((not of course refering there to the military)

So its bye bye UK..........

Big picture please George..........fat chance of that.........

Still as long as the rich get richer eh.....

[SunderlandMatt]

Terrible idea. One of the few benefits of teaching in Sunderland (to use the example given) is that your pay packet would go a little further that in Surrey. If teachers (insert any profession) were to get paid more to live in Surrey then who in their right mind would stay in Sunderland?

I think a policy such as this would lead to poorer areas, which are less attractive to live in, being hit hard by workers who would no longer get any financial incentive for putting up with living in those less tasteful areas. If the workers then leave to chase higher salaries, the area will take a further nose dive.

Terrible idea. Bills are higher in Surrey because people there will pay it. Osborne will just stoke the fire and pour more tax payers money into an area which doesn't need it. :ugh: There needs to be something to entice workers to the poorer areas!

[Melchett01]

Politics of envy, pure and simple. This and the trashing of public sector pensions is little more than the race to the bottom to pacify 'Outraged of Tunbidge Wells' who is finding himself maxed out with debt and his home failing to rise in value to prop his over-extended lifestyle up.

When times were good and the private sector was coining it in, bonuses were being paid and people were generally doing rather well for themselves, I didn't hear much in the way of complaning. And I suspect that once we have all hit the bottom and market forces then start to raise public sector renumeration once again, the complaints will stop and it will be business as usual with the public sector lagging.

Many of the better companies whilst offering a weighting or allowance if based somewhere expensive like London, don't base renumeration on how much Joe Bloggs and his mates down the road from the Head Office earn, but on the what they think they need to pay based on the demands of the job and the need to attract the best candidates. If Osborne's plan to equalise out salaries were applied across the board, then either people in Tower Hamlets would be very happy about an imminent pay rise, or people in the City were would be rather annoyed at an imminent pay cut.

To apply an overly-simplistic blanket political solution to a geographical and socio-economic problem which is influenced by a multitude of factors will as PN suggested have huge unintended consequences - migration of talent away from the the north being but one - and is simply designed to hit the easiest targets. Next they'll be coming up with hairbrained schemes to tax old ladies out of the family home. I'm a Conservative by instinct, and certainly no fan of the Unions who I think who are as dangerous as the Lib Dems and Danny Alexander in particular, but this shower really have to stop going after the 'easy targets' and actually think about extracting some cash from those at the very very top who can afford to pay accountants to come up with the weasley schemes. Otherwise, I would suggest that they don't get too comfortable in Downing Street.

[waco]

Give it a few more months and people north of watford will be invited to send their children up chimneys, whilst the rest attend the poor house.

Whilst the "mill owners" have everyting nicey put away in tax havens....

If the weather is nice this summer.........do enjoy the riots..........

[A A Gruntpuddock]

Funny, when I worked for a local council my salary was generally less than in the private sector. My Institution used to publish an annual pay survey which usually pit the median salary at least 50% more than mine.

No complaints about that from the government, which routinely held pay rises down or even refused to implement them.

[tucumseh]

This has been coming for a long time. Government contract pricing is based on the same basic principle, that suppliers in "cheaper" parts of the country have lower overheads.


But practical implementation across the public sector is quite another thing and I foresee major problems. Government tends to create rather false geographic areas when doing things like this. Someone mentioned mobile civil servants. At the time of the enforced move to AbbeyWood we were entitled to "Excess Rent Allowance" to cater for price differentials when buying/renting a house at the new station (an important consideration when you're already on income support due to low salary). The Treasury skewed the figures to somehow conclude Bristol was less expensive than the likes of Colchester, so very few qualified for ERA. Yet the like for like house prices were higher, and escalating quickly as 6,000 families moved into the area. Prices in the likes of St Pauls were indeed very low - and the Treasury took full advantage of this in their calculations.

However, I foresee one good thing in MoD, if they are brave enough. In certain establishments many posts are over-graded to permit an artificially high salary for the job. This results in MoD having some very senior people who are actually grossly inexperienced. Time to resurrect and strictly implement the Treasury agreed Grade Descriptions. That would stop most promotions at AbbeyWood for the foreseeable future! A far easier way to save on the salary bill. In one section there, they have a One Star doing a job the vast majority of his staff left behind 4 or 5 promotions ago.

[Doctor Cruces]

This government(?) is doing all it can to turn the UK into a welfare state for the rich. Succeeding quite nicely, I would say.

[Lima Juliet]

The "going rate" in Helmand is going to be interesting...:ooh:

Quite frankly, it would be unenforcable for the Armed Forces...

LJ

[JFZ90]

Frankly hilarious that someone above fully supports the idea yet would obviously not want it to apply to themselves.

That, added to the use of the phrase 'back office', says a lot.

[SilsoeSid]

Quite frankly, it would be unenforcable for the Armed Forces...

Unless of course, all pay scales were reduced to a single 'basic rank related rate' and a Local Allowance was paid depending where the posting was!

Extending on Sunderland Matts comment;
One of the few benefits of teaching in Sunderland (to use the example given) is that your pay packet would go a little further that in Surrey. If teachers (insert any profession) were to get paid more to live in Surrey then who in their right mind would stay in Sunderland?

What I also don't get, is that although the cost of living may well be less in Sunderland than Surrey, that's not all; a teachers working conditions will be a lot better in Surrey than in Sunderland and then we have the situation as Matt says, "Who in their right mind would stay in Sunderland?"

[millerscourt]

Melchett01

Just for the record it is disgusted of Tunbridge Wells not outraged!:ok:

As a past residence of T Wells I like accurate quotations:D

[NutLoose]

Ahhhhhhh I read that then as we won't put anyone's wages up if they say, work in London, we will simply reduce everyone else's... Therefore introducing pay cuts without actually saying we are cutting your pay..

Wonder if they will do the same with MP's ?

[Courtney Mil]

If teachers (insert any profession) were to get paid more to live in Surrey then who in their right mind would stay in Sunderland?

As Nut has illuded to above, do you really think this about paying some people more? I suspect, in this climate and orgy of cuts, it's probably an excuse to pay the rest less. Ant 're-balancing' of pay scales is hardly likely to include more pay for those in expensive areas, is it? But I knew what you meant.

[thefodfather]

It's interesting to see the EU hating tory's stealing this idea from the EU. EU salaries are set on a scale of the cost of living in the place of employment compared to Brussels, as civil servants in the UK might be about to find out this can lead to sudden pay decreases for no apparent reason. I predict the establishment of pay committees to discuss the various local coefficients and a whole lot of bleating from the unions.

[handysnaks]

Maybe George will surprise us with variable income tax rates based on location as well. After all, if those government employees in the north cost less then they won't need as much tax to pay for them!

[thefodfather]

Or another novel idea is to stop public sector workers paying tax, reduce their pay accordingly and then get rid of the half of the inland revenue that work out how much of the money the government pay out to staff that they want back again.

[JEMster]

http://www.ome.uk.com/Document/Default.aspx?DocumentUid=1857CBC5-742F-4C7D-8017-41A2CB000DEA

...Judges and Military are excluded from regional pay

[jindabyne]

As Nut has illuded to above, do you really think this about paying some people more? I suspect, in this climate and orgy of cuts, it's probably an excuse to pay the rest less.

Tosh, but then most of this is. And no CM, I won't expand.

[Stuff]

I assume this will apply to MPs too.

MPs representing Wales (where apparently public wages are 18% above the private sector) will surely vote enthusiastically for a near 1/5th wage cut.

I await leadership from the front...

[TURIN]

Martin O Neil?

[crashtest]

Hmmm. To follow on from Tucumseh in post #12: does this mean that SFQ in a more affluent area will be charged at a higher rate, in line with plans to to migrate to 'market rate'? Ducks... Nibble... :-(

[geezerBJ]

Office of Manpower Economics - Error 404 (http://www.ome.uk.com/Document/Defau...7-41A2CB000DEA)

...Judges and Military are excluded from regional pay


.... Wrong. Judges and Senior Military are excluded !!

[Stuff]

I does say Senior Military but the whole letter is to the "Senior Salaries Review Body" and only talks about Senior Civil Service and Senior NHS Managers. There's nothing there to suggest junior Military are in for any change.

[Kitbag]

Stuff, you need to use words as the politicians do and don't make assumptions.