Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Public sector pay rise masks political row to come

The Downing Street media grid must be a rather dismal affair these days, with announcements planned that barely get any attention at all thanks to a combination of Brexit and another minister being on the brink of resignation. But one story that has come off reasonably well is today’s public sector pay award. Ministers have confirmed that around one million workers in the health service, schools, armed forces and so on will receive a raise of between 1.5 and 3.5 per cent.

Obviously, this works nicely politically because everyone loves a pay rise. But the small print of this announcement reveals that it’s not going to make life dramatically easier for ministers. The Treasury press release says: ‘Today’s increases are funded from departmental budgets.’ Separately, Treasury ministers have been making very clear in Cabinet meetings that there will be no big funding deals for other departments along the lines of that awarded to the NHS recently. And so for departments to fund this pay rise, they will have to make cuts within their budgets.

These departments all have known budget problems. The Education department is part-funding the teachers’ pay rise, but has also assumed that schools will cover the first 1 per cent. Schools are already cash-strapped, with even leading ones having to drop subjects and restrict the number of public exams their pupils take, or ask parents for donations, either in cash or in the form of basics such as toilet roll. The knock-on effect of DfE or schools themselves having to restrict other budgets for the pay award will be noticeable.

Similarly, the Ministry of Justice has a pay rise for prison officers of at least 2.75

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