Civil service unions the FDA and Prospect are working up plans for an independent pay review body for rank-and-file officials to plug a gap in the current system.
FDA assistant general secretary Lauren Crowley said the proposals would be presented to government as a way to remedy "fundamentally broken and outdated" methods for deciding civil service pay.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves last week accepted the recommendations of a swathe of public sector pay review bodies, resulting in above-inflation pay rises for teachers, NHS staff and prison officers among others.
Members of the senior civil service will also get an inflation-busting 5% rise, on the recommendation of the Senior Salaries Review Body. In fact, some SCS members could get an uplift of 6.4% if they are currently at the bottom of SCS Pay Band 1 because of the impact of a £1,000 increase in the minima in tandem with the 5% hike.
While rank-and-file civil servants – the vast majority of departmental and agency staff below SCS grades – have also been awarded an average pay rise of 5%, they do not benefit from an independent review body to make recommendatons on the adequacy of their remuneration. Instead HM Treasury and the Cabinet Office decide on pay-remit guidance for departments. Over the past decade civil servants have typically received lower annual pay rises than other public sector workers.
Crowley said the plans to work up a blueprint for all civil servants to be covered by an independent pay review body followed an analysis commissioned from Incomes Data Research last year, in conjunction with Prospect.
"Based on our research and members’ insights, we have begun the process of shaping proposals for government on how an independent pay review body for grades below SCS could work," she said.
"We will look to develop and shape a proposal which builds on existing pay review bodies, reflects the dynamics of a diverse civil service with different pay pressures, and strengthens the negotiating power for unions once a pay review body has made its recommendations.
"We will also continue to work with devolved administrations to establish the best long-term solutions in those areas."
Crowley said that last year's State of Pay report had shown that an independent body of experts considering not just economic pressures faced by the government, but the impact of recruitment and retention, churn and morale, led to better results.
"We believe that strengthening the review body process and extending this to delegated grades will deliver better outcomes for members, employers and the public over the longer term," she said.
Crowley did not set out a timeframe for the project, but said the unions wanted to "work at pace" with the new government to "help shape its thinking".
"We know reform isn’t easy, and these difficult economic times mean the work needs to start right away, but we are ready for the challenge," she added.
Prospect deputy general secretary Steve Thomas added : “We have been clear that regardless of the level of the pay remit guidance this year, we regard the pay remit process as fundamentally broken.
“That is why we have been working with the FDA to consider some of the possibilities for reform, including by commissioning research by IDR.
“Agreeing pay for thousands of civil servants, across many different specialisms, in hundreds of different public organisations is always going to be a complex process.
"However, it is clear that a process which takes much greater account of the value of and development of skills; the challenges of recruitment and retention of specialist roles including in comparison with the private sector; detailed evidence; and the wider context of pay is desperately needed. It must also embed the voice of the workforce through their unions too.
“Now there has been a change of government we want to work as a priority with ministers, officials and other unions, to fully explore options to help deliver this.”
PCS, the other main civil service union, however, disagrees with the proposals.
General secretary Fran Heathcote said: “PCS represents around 200,000 members in the civil service – the vast majority of rank-and-file civil servants – and we are committed to collective bargaining with the employer.
“Through our campaign of industrial action, last year our members managed to secure a pay deal that more than doubled the pay remit, with a £1,500 one-off lump sum, and secured the abandonment of proposed cuts to the civil service compensation scheme.
“Pay review bodies solve none of the issues like pay coherence and equal pay that are major issues in the civil service. And as we’ve seen in other sectors, governments can rig or ignore so-called independent pay review bodies. They are no magic bullet.”