15
Conclusion
Twenty-Third Report - Civil service wor…
Deferred
Civil service pay for almost all grades has seen a long-term decline. Since 2013, civil service median pay has decreased in real terms for all grades apart from the most junior grade (Administrative Assistant).28 The Cabinet Office recognised that declining real-terms pay was a “chronic” problem affecting the civil service …
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Civil service pay for almost all grades has seen a long-term decline. Since 2013, civil service median pay has decreased in real terms for all grades apart from the most junior grade (Administrative Assistant).28 The Cabinet Office recognised that declining real-terms pay was a “chronic” problem affecting the civil service that was “storing up increasing problems of competitiveness with the wider economy”.29 The Cabinet Office further acknowledged there was evidence that pay affected departments’ ability to recruit, citing unattractive pay as the typical reason for failed recruitment campaigns resulting in no appointable candidates.30 It added that government had sought to address the impact of pay on civil service morale. In particular, the Cabinet Office had responded to civil servants’ decreasing satisfaction with pay by making an improved pay offer during 2023, including a one-off £1,500 payment to all civil servants below SCS level.31
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees and states a new Civil Service Reward Strategy is under development with an initial target implementation date of Winter 2024, aiming for a flexible reward framework by 2030, but acknowledges departmental control over pay systems.
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HM Treasury
17
Conclusion
Twenty-Third Report - Civil service wor…
Deferred
Departments vary quite substantially in their approaches to performance-related pay, including how much they spend on it. For example, departmental per-head spending on performance-related pay in 2021–22 ranged from £13 to £1,366 per employee, for staff 27 C&AG’s Report, para 3.2 28 C&AG’s Report, para 1.10, Figure 6 29 Q56 …
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Departments vary quite substantially in their approaches to performance-related pay, including how much they spend on it. For example, departmental per-head spending on performance-related pay in 2021–22 ranged from £13 to £1,366 per employee, for staff 27 C&AG’s Report, para 3.2 28 C&AG’s Report, para 1.10, Figure 6 29 Q56 30 Q54 31 Q56 32 C&AG’s Report, para 3.4 33 C&AG’s Report, para 3.5 34 C&AG’s Report, paras 16–18 35 Qq60–62 36 Qq63–64 Civil service workforce: Recruitment, pay and performance management 13 below SCS level.37 The Cabinet Office expressed surprise about the level of variation in departments’ performance-related pay arrangements, remarking that the extent of this variation was higher than it would have expected. It added that the new pay and reward strategy promised in the Civil Service People Plan would need to look harder at the role performance-related pay should play in the civil service, with the intention of rewarding employees for higher output and higher quality of work.38 We also asked the Cabinet Office how it guards against the risk of indirect discrimination where the quantity and quality of an individual’s work may be measured more easily in some roles than in others. It told us that objective data will become increasingly available in this area, and that there are “some checks and balances” in how people moderate performance across individuals.39 Performance management
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Government response AI summary
The government agrees and states a new Civil Service Reward Strategy is under development with an initial target implementation date of Winter 2024, aiming for a coherent reward framework by 2030, and acknowledges departmental control over individual pay systems.
Read full response →
HM Treasury