Ministers expected to approve pay rises for all public sector workers, Sky News understands

19 comments

1. This makes sense.

   Without having your frontline staff at the NHS/Fire Service/Police etc. on board, you simply can’t enact the sort of changes that are needed, and further strike action simply exacerbates the whole situation.

   There will inevitably be a time when the government and public services staff will clash as widespread reform is needed, but this isn’t the hill for this government to die on

2. When a nurse/doctor can move abroad to just about any other developed nation with and be welcomed with a no-restrictions visa and way bigger salary, this is an obvious decision.

3. Is this *all* public sector workers or just select roles that have been in the news?

4. This means teachers for FE aswell right… Cause that would be great for me personally…

   Edit: FE or further education is the stuff after gcses which is directly funded by the government and not university which would be HE or higher education. The government doesn’t directly pay my wages but they do fund the course I teach like many other fe courses in the uk.

   I did a google, according to the government website “Following a review into the classification of the statutory further education (FE) sector (FE colleges, sixth form colleges and designated institutions) and their subsidiaries in England, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has reclassified colleges and their subsidiaries into the central government sector.”

   So, yes fe teachers will count for the raise if it even happens.

5. Hopefully this is the start of catching up on 14 years of frozen pay. 

   25k was an ok salary in 2010, not so good for the same job today. 

   Now they have to get the money back off those who profiteered in the lost Tory years – landlords first. 

6. Wages need bumping up in the middle bands. My only concern is the minimum wage gets pushed up again and we end up in the same boat with all these jobs barely earning above the minimum again.

   Some people argue that’s a good thing, but I don’t think it’s going to help police/teacher/nurse recruitment if their wages don’t start to be risen significantly above the bare minimum you can earn, just as they were a decade+ ago.

   We need to start awarding people for aspiring to learn hard skills again if we’re to have any hope of raising UK productivity.

7. What the MSM always seem to forget that if your employed as a Civil Servant and your total income is more than £12570 per annum you pay tax.

   Therefore giving a 5.5% pay rise means that you earn more and therefore pay more tax , you are also like to spend more as well which means the rise is offset by increased tax and VAT receipts as people spend more.

8. I think this is a good thing. However it does blow the argument apart that they can’t afford to scrap the two child benefit cap. As these rises were above what was expected originally.

9. Is this an actual pay rise – as in above inflation and if so is it just today’s 2% inflation or covering some of the monster inflation that has already just passed?

10. Public sector pay is not great, they keep saying that it’s unaffordable to raise public sector pay but the country can’t keep ripping off those people holding this mess together. Especially the front line workers like teachers and nurses, they really ought to have a big hefty rise to make that work actually worth it.

11. First genuine payrise not linked to advancing up grades based in experience or promotion in 10 years of public sector working. 

    Will be an odd feeling.

12. Fingers crossed this has some knock on to the private sector too. At the very least it will hopefully get a big chunk of the workforce spending more.

13. So now government will enforce this on private firms too yeah? I can actually be paid a proper wage not the “competitive BS” they say.

14. Would be nice if this could also be reflected in a rise in NMW/a rise in the personal tax allowance, for those of us not working in the public sector

15. Headline misleading, not all public sector workers.

    For us in local government (NJC pay scale) 2 out of 3 unions have announced a strike ballot over an offer of a flat rate increase between 5.7% on the lowest and 2.5% at the highest point. No extra day’s annual leave and no two hour reduction on the working week as also claimed for.

    Said Ballot isn’t due to start until September, for a pay award that should’ve been given from 1st April. They’ll vote and regardless of the outcome, accept the offer anyway.

    Unison / Unite / GMB are about as much use as Anne Frank’s drum kit.

16. All? Cos they keep saying specifically teachers and nurses.

17. They keep mentioning the public sector getting a pay rise but there’s no mention of the Civil Service. Will it apply to them as well?

18. After they’ve gave everyone a pay rise they will lower the tax threshold so you’ll end up more poorer.

19. Just as we got on top of inflation a Labour government is just around the corner to fuck the country up again