Outrage over inflation-busting rises for judges, top brass and mandarins

Published on Tuesday 31 March 2009 23:10

BUSINESS leaders reacted with fury last night as it emerged that senior civil servants, judges and military top brass are to get inflation-busting pay rises.

Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, was criticised despite agreeing less-than- recommended pay increases for most senior officials.

The rises are well above the Retail Price Index measure of inflation, which currently stands at 0 per cent and is often used as the basis for wage deals.

They have also been announced in the wake of widespread job losses across the UK and private sector firms implementing pay freezes or cuts.

Annual rises for senior military officers will be 2.8 per cent, in line with official recommendations, but senior civil servants and judges will have to settle for 1.5 per cent increases.

Mr Brown said the economic crisis meant the 2009-10 rises had to be lower than suggested by the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB).

His announcement affects almost all the 3,800 or so civil servants at senior management level in Britain, including some 250 within the Scottish Government and its agencies, as well as the judiciary and military officials north of the Border.

However, unlike in England, it does not affect senior NHS officials in Scotland, whose pay deals are settled separately.

Mr Brown added: "It is important in the present economic climate that senior staff in the public sector show leadership in the exercise of pay restraint."

The SSRB had suggested that pay for senior civil servants should go up by 2.1 per cent, but the government reduced that to 1.5 per cent.

But Corin Taylor, at the Institute of Directors, said he would have expected the pay deal to have been "much tighter".

He added: "At the very least, pay should have been frozen for MPs and top public sector staff. Businesses struggling to pay taxes in the recession deserve no less."

More than a third of private companies across the UK are expected to make redundancies this year, according to a survey for the British Chambers of Commerce. Around four in ten are planning wage freezes, smaller pay rises than in 2008 or a cut in working hours.

However Jonathan Baume, general secretary of the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, accused Mr Brown of playing "gesture politics" with the pay deals.

They were announced the day after it emerged MPs were to get a 2.33 per cent pay rise, although Mr Brown has banned ministerial pay rises.

Mr Baume added: "The government has targeted senior staff, both in the civil service and NHS, simply because they are perceived as easy targets.

"Scoring cheap political points by failing to honour the recommended pay rises will only further exacerbate the problems which show senior private sector staff are paid up to 114 per cent more the civil service."

WAGE FREEZE

MINISTERS in the Scottish Government are to freeze their pay this year as an act of solidarity with those who are suffering from the recession.

As of today, all MSPs are entitled to a 2.33 per cent increase agreed by MPs for their own salaries because Holyrood pay is linked through the Scotland Act. It is up to them individually to accept it.

However, the 16 ministers in the SNP Holyrood administration have decided to take a moral lead by freezing their MSP salary and top-up ministerial pay, saving the taxpayer 15,000 on ministerial wages alone.

The current MSP salary is 55,381, due to go up to 56,671. The ten ordinary ministers get an extra 26,068 which would have gone up to 26,675, while cabinet ministers receive 41,618 which would have risen to 42,587.

First Minister Alex Salmond's ministerial wage is 80,224 and would have gone up to 82,093. However, he is taking the 1,510 pay increase on his MP's salary. But as a dual parliamentarian, he is only entitled to one third of the MSP salary, which he donates to a charitable trust.