Just to show what that 1 year “in arrears” pay rise effect looks like I have plotted the annual pay rises against it’s previous year’s inflation. As you can see, this year’s rise, if it is 6% will be painful and effectively wipe out any 0.1% to 0.3% gains we’ve made since 2016. Prior to that we were about 8% below where we should have been thanks to “pay restraint” and “austerity”.
But if the Government did award say a 9% pay rise across the board for Public Sector workers then our inflation would likely be even higher for longer. Don’t forget that the economy and markets don’t like unfunded and unsupportable Government measures - remember the disaster of “Trussonomics” and Kamikwasi’s crazy plans!
So marginal gains are the most likely in future years to claw back what value has been stripped from our pay scales. So at best we should hope for 1-2% gains over inflation towards a better deal. Unless something like a new pay structure like Haythornthwaite recommends makes a select few considerably better off.
PS. I should add that this does not include anyone with annual increments or those that have promoted. So they will still likely be ever so slightly better off as these tend to be an extra 1-2% for seniority increments and 5-7% for promotion.