Civil servants have been given special pay rises to stop their pay falling below the new national minimum wage, it has been revealed.The Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) have been forced to take the interim measure as the adult rate for the minimum wage increased to £5.73 an hour on Wednesday.
In a statement, the ONS said the decision had been taken because pay negotiations had not been completed. “Until this is concluded, the ONS has taken action to ensure none of its staff receive a salary below the new national minimum wage,” it added.
An MCA spokesman confirmed that they had also provided an uplift for some staff, "mostly trainees". He said the agency currently had a pay claim lodged with ministers. "That will lift up the pay of a significant number of our lowest paid workers," he added.
Nevertheless, Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) general secretary Mark Serwotka said it was “shameful that government departments and agencies may have to give low paid staff an emergency pay rise to lift their earnings above the new national minimum wage”.
He added: “This sorry state of affairs underlines the endemic problem of low pay across civil and public services, which is being made worse by the government’s public sector pay cap.”
PCS also claimed that other areas of government were potentially affected by the new minimum wage, and named the Home Office and the National Offender Management Service.
But a Ministry of Justice spokesman said there was “absolutely no truth” in the claim. “None of the staff in the National Offender Management Service will be affected by the change in the minimum wage,” he added.
A statement from the Home Office also said that “no member of Home Office staff earns less than the national minimum wage rate and no emergency pay rise is, or has been, necessary to achieve this”.
This item was sourced from the Civil Service Network website.
