The lowest paid civil servants in the Department for Work and Pensions are set to get consolidated pay rises of 4%, the civil service's biggest union has revealed.
This year’s pay remit guidance, published by the Cabinet Office in July, said departments could offer an average pay award of up to 5%, compared to the inflation rate at that time of 2%.
The DWP has now confirmed its final offer to staff, which the PCS union has published details of. Under the deal, administrative assistants (AA) will get a consolidated pay bump of 4%, plus a 1% unconsolidated payment. Meanwhile, some Grade 6 officials will receive no consolidated pay rise this year.
PCS said it has rejected the offer as “the department’s priorities and implementation failed to meet our aspirations for members and disadvantaged the lowest paid in particular”.
"Hard-working members in the DWP deserve more than the employer is willing to pay from this year’s pay pot", the union said.
The department plans to pay the new rates, along with back pay, next month.
The pay rises offered to AA and administrative officer officials will mean that their pay will “almost inevitably be caught up by the National Living Wage for the third consecutive year in April 2025”, the union, which has 20,000 DWP members at these grades, said.
“This will mean that DWP will remain a minimum wage employer for the foreseeable future, paying the legal minimum rates of pay,” it added.
PCS said the offer “falls well short of what our members have every right to expect” but that the stance from the DWP at the beginning of the pay talks “was even worse”.
It said the first proposal tabled by DWP during negotiations would have seen SEO and G7 staff on the national scale minima receive rises of 9.45%, while AA-EO grades would have got a rise below 5% and all members on legacy contracts would have received no consolidated pay rise at all.
PCS said it will now consult its members in the DWP to get their views on the offer and what the union should do next in its campaign for “fair pay in the DWP”.
Here are the headline figures for pay rises:
AA-HEO – Employee Deal terms and conditions
| Grade |
Increase |
| AA |
4% (+1% non-consolidated) |
| AO |
5% |
| EO |
5% |
| HEO |
5% |
AA-HEO – Legacy terms and conditions
| Grade |
Uplift |
| AA |
4% (+1% non-consolidated) |
| AO |
4.5% |
| EO |
4.5-5.5% (The exact percentage EO Legacy grades will receive will depend on how close they are to the pay band minimum. The additional uplift for those on the minimum compared to other Legacy colleagues is to ensure there is a difference between Legacy AA, AO and EO) |
| HEO |
4.5% |
SEO-G6
| Grade |
On minima |
On maxima |
| SEO |
6% |
4% |
| G7 |
6% |
4% |
| G6 |
4% |
No consolidated increase (4% unconsolidated) |
CSW understands that the reason some Grade 6s will receive no consolidated pay rise is to help reduce the width of the pay band.