Everyone likes a good piece of pantomime this time of year, but the opinion piece by Andrew Moretta recently published in Civil Service World painting Prospect and our colleagues at the FDA as “ugly sisters” and telling us what we think really didn’t fill me with a feeling of solidarity. To put it another way, it did rather feel that that the author was doing all he could to engineer the fear that “he’s behind you”.
People are entitled to their opinion, however – and while I disagree with some of the manner in which he expressed the view, and indeed with the thrust of his argument, it does give me another opportunity to spotlight the position of my union in our own words.
Let me be clear: we do not see our members in the civil service and public sector as “ordinary civil servants”. There is no such thing. Our members and others in our sister unions do what they do because they want to make a difference to the lives of people in this country. As far as I’m concerned, there is nothing “ordinary” about that.
When Prospect lobbies, seeks to influence, presses for change, negotiates, we do so proudly for members who undertake fascinating and important work with specialist skills.
They could be fulfilling any number of unseen and often unacknowledged roles: underpinning the UK’s scientific research capabilities; providing for human, plant and animal health security and effective defence of the natural environment; supporting critical infrastructure; facilitating the deployment and equipping of our armed forces; ensuring people are safe in their places of work; or a thousand other specialisms that are critical to the UK’s economic growth and social progress.
We welcome the opportunity to restate our clear position, that we regard the pay remit process in the civil service for delegated pay as fundamentally broken. It does not deliver what it needs to deliver, which is a pay-and-conditions architecture that allows the civil service and its agencies to recruit and retain the talent that they need, at the level that they need to provide an effective service.
“We welcome the opportunity to restate our clear position, that we regard the pay remit process in the civil service for delegated pay as fundamentally broken”
It is clear that what is desperately needed is a process that takes much greater account of: the value of and development of skills; the challenges of recruitment and retention of specialist roles, particularly where there are direct private sector comparators; detailed evidence; and the wider personal and societal context of pay. It must also embed the voice of the workforce through their respective unions.
Our experience working with employers on a day-to-day basis – in workplaces where we listen, and we challenge, and we get things done – tells us that there are opportunities being lost because the challenges I’ve listed above, and more, are not taken up.
There is clearly a need to move beyond the status quo. Our focus is on working with influencers and stakeholders who are focused on outcomes, evidence, and whether they help bring an end to the stale and flawed pay remit guidance that leaves civil servants and others impacted by it worse off.
Rather than being fearful, exploring the merits for new pay review bodies should be part of that conversation. They could and should receive evidence on comparability as well as affordability, on how pay frameworks address progression not stagnation, and on equality and equal pay not just annual pay.
What is painfully obvious is that the current system does not work. If properly instituted, pay review bodies can change that for the better and be part of the work of delivering public services which work and are fit for the coming challenges. Prospect and our members doing extraordinary jobs will carry on arguing to government and others that a lack of strategic thinking needs to be put “behind you” – we are ready to work with those willing to do that.
Steve Thomas is deputy general secretary of Prospect union