By Jaimie Kaffash
14 July 2010
The blanket public sector pay freeze will have a more
punitive effect on civil servants than other workers and could lead to more
equal pay claims, Public Finance has
been told.
The two-year freeze – announced by Chancellor George Osborne
in his June 22 Budget – applies to all public sector workers earning more than
£21,000 per year, However, in some professions – such as teaching and nursing –
some employees’ salaries will continue to rise. This is because increases in
increments, based on the acquisition of new skills, are paid for from a
separate fund. This does not apply in the civil
service.
‘A pay freeze in the civil service has a far more punitive
effect than it does in the rest of the public sector,’ Dai Hudd, deputy general
secretary of Prospect, the civil servants union, told PF. ‘Our members don’t enjoy the same increments and progression arrangements as the rest of the public sector.’
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude had acknowledged this
disparity at a meeting on July 1, Hudd said. While this was 'progress’,
Maude had not indicated that ‘he was going to do anything about it’, Hudd
added.
The freeze would also ‘hamper efforts to equalise pay’, he
said. Past pay structures based on length of service affected women adversely because
they were more likely to have career breaks and shorter lengths of service. Attempts to redress this would have to be
put on hold and could fuel equal pay claims.
Emma Hawksworth, a partner in employment law at Russell
Jones and Walker, told PF: ‘Pay
freezes reinforce differences. What many employers do is look at people on the
bottom of the pay scales, [then] they try to level them out with pay increases.
‘People at the bottom of the pay scale tend to get higher
rises than those at the top. If you have a pay freeze, those gaps will be left
in limbo and there won’t be the scope for employers who are looking at
problematic pay scales to change them.’
