The Home Office has told staff they will receive a 1.5% pay increase to match the Treasury pay guidance – despite the document currently being subject to a judicial review.
Civil Service World understands staff were informed about the pay plan yesterday, despite the offer being rejected by trade unions.
The imposition of the pay deal means the department is in line with civil service pay guidance issued by the Treasury and Cabinet Office in June, which limits pay rises for civil servants to a range of between 1% and 1.5%.
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A Home Office spokesman confirmed to CSW that the department had imposed a pay award in line with the Treasury guidance.
“The Home Office has been in negotiations with the trade unions over this year’s pay award. Those negotiations have concluded and while the unions have not agreed the offer, their views have been taken into account as far as possible.
“The department has decided that it is appropriate to implement the award now to avoid unnecessary delay in paying our staff this year’s pay award.”
The increase in the pay guidance is less than those elsewhere in the public sector, and the FDA, Prospect and Public and Commercial Services unions have brought a judicial review of the remit, arguing it was produced without adequate consultation.
FDA assistant general secretary Amy Leversidge said that the Home Office had “shown real disregard for its staff by imposing a derisory pay offer that has been overwhelmingly rejected”.
She accused home secretary Sajid Javid of “attempting to absolve himself of all responsibility" and said he was “failing to show civil servants the respect he himself claims they deserve” after refusing to engage on a pay deal for staff outside the 1.5% cap
CSW has previously reported that the Home Office had decided in July that it would work within Treasury guidance, and would not put together a business case for a bespoke deal, unlike the Ministry of Justice – although this was rejected by unions – and the Department for Work and Pensions.
Leversidge said that 88.6% of FDA members had voted to reject the Home Office offer, “yet when we wrote to the home secretary for a second time to ask him to meet with us to discuss the concerns of staff, he refused”.
“It’s no wonder that the Home Office consistently ranks as one of the worst departments for employee engagement on the Civil Service People Survey when their concerns about pay are being so blatantly disregarded and the minister doesn’t see the benefit in listening to his staff.”