Downing Street Says » Public Sector Pay

Asked whether the Prime Minister agreed with the Head of the Audit Commission that public sector pay should be frozen for the next two years, the Prime Minister s Spokesman (PMS) told the assembled press that the Chancellor had spoken about this in the last day or so and the Prime Minister shared the view that public sector pay had to reflect the prevailing conditions and in particular reflect the fact that inflation had come down a long way. So of course we had got to be fair to people in the private sector as well as those in the public sector, but contrary to speculation, that did not mean that there were any plans to reopen multi-year deals.

Asked what he meant by being fair to people in the private sector, the PMS said that we would reflect the requirement for efficiency in the public sector. That included pay as we looked at the budget moving forward over the next spending period. These were of course decisions for the Chancellor.

Put that it had been reported that the Teachers Review Body were currently looking at whether they should re-open the teachers pay deal, the PMS replied that it was his understanding that the multi-year pay deal ran until 2011. Put that the issue they had been asked to look at was whether they should re-open it or not, the PMS said that as he understood it there were no plans to open any of the multi-year deals.

Asked why the Government would continue to give public sector workers pay increases above the level of inflation, the PMS said that the Government believed that multi-year deals were important for the stability of the wider economy and the workforce. All future decisions on public sector pay would have to be made in light of the current economic climate.

Put that the Chancellor had said that decisions would be made in the next few weeks, the PMS said that what the Chancellor had said was that he would look at these issues in the coming weeks. The Treasury were carrying out work on an ongoing basis on public sector efficiency and may also have been a reference to the fact that we were beginning to submit evidence to the pay review bodies in the next few months.

1 Comment »

I have worked in the public sector for over 10 years. People, generally, work in the public sector for a number of reasons:
There is no exploitation by a boss who is profit driven;
To give both a service and protect the local community;

There are no bonus schemes, no profit sharing and in the majority of cases what you see is what you get, with respect to pay.

Because the private sector is no longer earning the large profits they have grown accustomed too, they want to ensure that everyone suffers. However if the government had not stretched its finances by bailing-out the banks(private sector)there would be no need to look for savings elsewhere.
Comment by S Wells-Burr — 8 Jul 2009 on 1:26 pm | Link

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» Monday, July 6, 2009

Public Sector Pay

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