The FDA and Prospect are proposing that the civil service unions relinquish collective bargaining over pay. In effect, they wish to see the embrace of the Senior Salaries Review Body – which serves as a compensatory mechanism for senior civil servants, unable to engage in collective negotiation – be extended to the rest of the civil service.
Few would deny that civil service bargaining arrangements require reform. Most are understandably unhappy with the current so-called "delegated" direct model of collective bargaining conducted by the unions with the departments within the parameters of Cabinet Office pay-remit guidance. This approach replaced Whitley Council arrangements back in the 1990s.
The Whitley Councils saw the staff and official sides negotiating over the terms and conditions of service in a "spirit of partnership", the government obliged by constitutional convention to implement the awards handed down. They served the civil service well for more than 70 years – too well for the post 1979 governments which have sought to abolish these national joint bodies. The Nursing PRB was established in 1984, supplanting and undermining NHS Whitley arrangements, and the aforementioned STRB was imposed during 1987-91. The Prison Service PRB replaced the Prison Officers’ Whitley Council in 2001. The NHS PRB extended the Nursing PRB to embrace those NHS workers not catered for by the Doctors and Dentists Remuneration Body in 2004-07 and the Police Remuneration Review Body replaced the Whitley-style Police Negotiating Body for police officers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2014.
The most recent tilt was at the Fire Service’s Whitley Council, although fierce opposition by the Fire Brigades Union saw proposals for a PRB abandoned and the National Joint Council for Local Authority Fire and Rescue Services retained. As the FBU well understood, these initiatives are intended not to ensure better rewards for the public servants in question, but to permit the government to exercise better control over public sector pay.
PCS is similarly aware of the need to safeguard collective bargaining over pay. In the face of delegated bargaining, PRG and the laws against strikes, the PCS has secured remarkably favourable outcomes for those it represents. During 2023-24, the union’s campaign of industrial action obliged the Cabinet Office to engage with the union. Delegated bargaining and the PRG was effectively usurped, and the PCS achieved an increase in the headline pay remit figure from 2% to 4.5% (5% for the lowest paid) – some grades ultimately receiving much more – plus a £1,500 "cost-of-living" payment.
For 2024-25 PCS will, among other claims, be demanding and negotiating a further cost-of-living payment, restoration of the real-terms pay lost during the years of "austerity", pay equality across the departments, a reduction in the working week and a minimum "living wage" of £15 per hour. PCS is setting the agenda in a way which would not be possible if it were restricted to presenting evidence to a PRB.
While PRG is a very significant hindrance to effective bargaining, the chief problem remains the laws against strikes. At the recent TUC conference, the FDA and Prospect supported motions calling for the repeal of the anti-trade union legislation. Yet the proposal for a new PRB to cater for workers currently served by bargaining arrangements does not advance that cause. On the contrary, it plays into the hands of those who prefer to retain the laws against strikes and the deeply unsatisfactory status quo.
The establishment of a civil service PRB would further undermine the civil service unions and distract from the principal task at hand, which is persuading the Starmer cabinet to repeal the offending legislation and revitalise collective bargaining in all sectors.
"The establishment of a civil service PRB would undermine civil service unions and distract from the principal task at hand, which is persuading the Starmer cabinet to repeal the offending legislation and revitalise collective bargaining"
Moreover, there is no sign that the government will be willing to cede the truly independent review body the FDA and Prospect require. In 2023, then-shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves was emphatic that a Labour government would be quite prepared to reject review body recommendations which were at odds with fiscal policy. She made no mention of PRB reform and appeared to see direct collective negotiation with the departments as the way to resolve disputes with public servants unhappy with their respective review bodies.
If the government is prepared to cede truly independent PRBs, then it will also be prepared to cede full freedom of association in accord with its labour treaty obligations – which would see the reformed PRBs relegated to where collective bargaining is impossible or truly problematic. Those obligations dictate that other than in the most senior grades – already legitimately, if inadequately, catered for by the Senior Salaries Review Body – civil service collective bargaining must continue.
Rather than pressing for a new PRB, the FDA and Prospect would serve the interests of ordinary civil servants better by lobbying for the repeal of the laws against strikes, the introduction of a comprehensive sectoral bargaining system and the revival of Whitley-style collective negotiation.
Unions should be permitted to do what unions do: bargain on behalf of their members "in the shadow" of effective industrial action. They cannot be allowed to become glorified friendly societies reduced to presenting arguments for improved terms and conditions of service to government appointed committees.
Andrew Moretta is an honourary research fellow at the University of Liverpool