Downing Street Says » Armed Forces Pay

» Thursday, February 7, 2008

Armed Forces Pay

Asked what the justification was for the pay rise of more than 1.9% and the fact that it wasn’t staged, the PMS said this was a different public sector pay round. The Government continued to believe that there needed to be discipline in relation to public sector pay and we needed to set pay in line with meeting the Government’s inflation target. These decisions were taken year-by-year and sector-by-sector.

Put that it was Government policy to bring in three year pay deals, the PMS said that it was the case that where it was appropriate to do so, the Government would like to see more multi-year pay deals.

Asked what the justification was for giving the armed forces a pay rise of 2.6% when other public working thought that they did an exceptional job, the PMS said that difficult decisions had to be taken last year, in relation to a number of public sector workers. As he had said, we had not made decisions yet in relation to most other public sector workers for this year. We would continue with our disciplined approach, consistent with meeting the overall inflation target, but these were decisions that were taken department by department, depending on the particular conditions that those groups of workers faced.

Asked if it was fair to say that the Prime Minister’s admiration for the armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq would have influenced the decision, the PMS said that it was fair to say that the armed forces do an exceptional job, which was what Des Browne said this morning. Asked on the pay deal for prison workers, the PMS said he did not know whether an announcement had been made yet, so he did not want to pre-empt it.

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