National Pay – Treasury Pay Guidance Finally Issued.

The PCS DWP Group Executive Committee (GEC) has supplied the following information:

National Pay – Treasury Pay Guidance Finally Issued.

There have been serious delays by the Government in issuing new guidance on pay for this year, and PCS exerted maximum pressure about this over several weeks. The guidance was issued on 31st March 2009, but is unacceptable in not taking account of cuts in living standards that our members experienced in recent years. However, the guidance does conform to the agreement reached with the Government last December, by including the use of efficiency savings to improve pay awards. We can now test whether this results in more money reaching our members pay packets.

MP’s Get 2.3% Rise

Members will also have noticed that MP’s have voted themselves a 2.3% pay rise this year. We believe that if a 2.3% pay rise, on top of their generous allowances, is good enough for highly paid MP’s then it is the very least that hard working low paid civil servants deserve.

Fair Pay for All
More evidence continues to emerge to show how badly members in DWP fare compared to pay rises in other organisations. Even staff in Lloyds bank are being awarded an inflation busting pay increase, despite being one of the banks bailed out by the taxpayer.

PCS don’t begrudge anyone an inflation proof rise – it’s what we are fighting for. We just believe this is further evidence of how justified we are in continuing to argue for decent pay rises for all DWP members.

GEC Secures Early Pay Talks
Immediately after the pay remit was published, The GEC met with DWP management and secured agreement from them to hold meetings at the earliest possible time to discuss how we apply the pay remit guidance in DWP.

We have pressed for full access to the information on potential and actual efficiency savings in DWP that can be used to improve members’ pay. We have made it clear to management that we expect them to move ahead rapidly with this work.

PCS are currently working on the detail of the guidance to ensure that we are best placed to secure every single additional penny we can to improve members pay. While in those talks yesterday the BBC revealed another 3,000 job losses in the economy – emphasising how crucial DWP staff are at present.

As we approach the third year of the imposed three year pay offer, DWP management will have to work hard with us to secure the maximum amount of extra money from efficiency savings in order to get members the pay we all deserve.

Together we will win.