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Jonathan Baume dismisses the decision to cut award recommendations from the Senior Salaries Board. The decision to cut the award recommended by the independent Senior Salaries Review Body for senior civil servants from 2.1% to 1.5%, as well as the reductions to judges' pay, was nothing more than gesture politics. The amount of money saved by the Government is less than £250,000, but it will be seen by many senior civil servants as a slap in the face. It will also do nothing to help morale during this difficult and turbulent economic period, when the Civil Service is under great pressure in supporting ministers. The median salary for senior civil servants is less than £80,000. This is clearly more than many people earn and, of course, a great number of workers are suffering, either through losing their jobs or accepting wage freezes or even wage cuts. However, as in other areas of the public sector, the FDA was persuaded by the Government to agree a three-year pay framework for the senior Civil Service of 7%, of which 2.5% was paid in 2008. The Government is now sending very mixed signals. Either it is intending to slowly unpick these multi-year deals – if it is not possible to pay 2.1% in 2009, it is hard to envisage 3% being paid in 2010. Or it is quietly trying to introduce a public sector pay policy, as we have seen on a number of occasions over the past four decades. The worry is that the Government is simply stumbling around in the dark, looking to make quick political hits rather than presenting an honest account of the state of the public finances, and the place of public sector pay within that. There is also a wider issue – recently picked up by the public administration select committee – which is the pressing need to establish a fair framework for setting executive pay across the whole public sector. Senior civil servants are in the lower quartile of public sector executive pay – comparable jobs in local government and the NHS are often paid considerably more. Moreover, there appears to be no control at all over the pay set in quangos. If we are to avoid a descent into the politics of envy and greater public concern at senior pay across public sector bodies, we need to establish a framework for determining pay which feels fair to senior managers themselves, as well as to the public. The Government is taking short-term initiatives on pay, such as calling for local government pay levels to be published, but is not putting in place a framework to deal with it effectively over the longer term. The more this continues, the more the disparities in the public sector will persist and the more the public will get angry. Jonathan Baume is general secretary of the FDA, the professional body for senior public servants

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FINANCE

'Gesture' politics on pay is no winning formula

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