For the senior civil service (SCS), the FDA is awaiting recommendations from the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) following the written and oral evidence submitted by the FDA and the government.

FDA Assistant General Secretary Naomi Cooke said the union hoped the SSRB would address the union’s call for fundamental reform of the SCS pay system and a number of other issues, including “the overlap between the SCS 1 pay band and delegated pay; two-tier starting pay for internal and external hires; and the lack of coherence in pay policy, with areas like commercial and digital being treated very differently from others, inhibiting the mobility and permeability of the SCS”.

The FDA has also presented the results of its annual pay survey to the SSRB. 94% of respondents believe the current reward framework is not fit for purpose and more than a quarter want to leave the civil service as soon as possible. Only a fifth of senior civil servants believe their department has sufficient resources to meet the demands of the year ahead, while two thirds are now more inclined to look for a job outside the civil service than they were 12 months ago.

“These results demonstrated that the challenges of Brexit and existing government priorities are pushing the service to its limits, while the SCS works more hours for falling real terms pay,” said Cooke.

The FDA believes these are strong grounds for a properly-resourced review of SCS reward and the union will continue to urge the government and civil service leadership to make this a priority.