Introduction

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Snapshot: May 2010

	Total	Single-year deals	Multi- year
Number of bargaining units	41	30 (inc Research Councils, DEFRA and DEFRA agencies)	10
Remits Cleared	16	5	11
Submitted but not yet cleared	1	1	-
Remits rejected	1	1	0
May consider efficiency savings	7	7	0
% Remit Cleared	-	1.9%	3.2%

Pay round so far …

This year's pay round could have moved quickly, because the Civil Service Remit Guidance was published early, and changes were introduced to speed up the remit process. But with the exception of a few organisations that normally settle remits early, most appear to have missed out.

The Labour administration issued the Remit Guidance in December 2009, with a deadline of 1 March for the submission of remits to sponsor departments. Despite these changes, most organisations missed the deadline and now need to have their remit cleared by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. This overturns a key aspect of the Remit Guidance and will inevitably mean delays in the pay remit process and possibly less generous remits.

There does not appear to be much movement so far on the greater flexibilities allowed for efficiency savings to be recycled into pay. Rather than risk unsettling multi-year remits organisations in multi-year deals do not appear to be preparing a business case to the Treasury.

There are not enough remits cleared to determine the value of the average award. Of the awards cleared so far the average is just under 2%, the top end of the permitted range. Organisations with a multi-year deals do not have to re-negotiate their remits this year however the Cabinet Office, which was subject to year-on-year negotiation of their multi-year deal, has revised their remit downwards this year from 3.75% to 1.9%.

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News and campaigns > Payback for specialists

Prospect's 'PayBack for Specialists' campaign

Prospect is running a long-term campaign to improve the pay standing of its 36,000 members who work in public services. The campaign will fight for:

recognition for professionals at work
adequate funding for services
fair pay structures for specialists
privatisation on merit, not profit
avoidance of compulsory redundancies.

Public sector pay

Pay is the most urgent issue in our PayBack campaign, given the clampdown on civil service pay since 2006 and the prospect that the Chancellor's 2% limit will run through until 2010.

Prospect negotiates pay with 63 different civil service employers. In 2006, members in those areas received a string of pay offers around the 2% mark while RPI inflation was at 4.2% and consumer prices were at 2.7%.

On 28 February 2007, 6,000 Prospect members in the Ministry of Defence went on strike for the day after rejecting a pay offer which was then imposed on them.

At the end of January 2008, members across 14 different employers had voted to reject their 2007 pay offers. This is the highest level of rejections since civil service pay was delegated in 1994 (ie devolved from a single set of national negotiations down to individual departments).

Value for skills

Once any outstanding pay awards have been settled, the focus of our campaign will switch to winning 'value for skills': the struggle for a long-term pay system that is fair to both employers and the taxpayer, but equally to the professional workers who carry out the core functions of government.

Campaign posters

We have produced three PayBack campaign posters. Click on any of the thumbnails below to view a larger preview (which will open in a new window). You can download PDF versions from the PayBack campaign resources page, or order quality printed versions from Central Services at Prospect HQ.