Published in mid-September, the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) recommended an overall 2.5% pay increase in SCS pay. However, the Government’s response only agreed to a maximum of 1.25%. 

FDA Assistant General Secretary – and the union’s lead on SCS issues – Lucille Thirlby said: “The civil service is yet again the poor relation in the public sector.” 

Thirlby explained that the Cabinet Office’s own SSRB evidence stated SCS median salary is lower than the private sector: “Our members will feel further undervalued by the difference in pay between those hired from outside of the civil service”, given a disparity of “27.6% in median base pay between internal and external hires.” 

She added: “This figure was revealed in the SSRB report and has never been published elsewhere by the Government. Given this disparity, the Government’s shameful lack of transparency on SCS pay data is not surprising. 

“Year after year the Government has ignored independent advice and evidence about the urgency to resolve SCS pay. It is not addressing the fundamental issues – only putting a sticking plaster over the open wound of ineffective pay structures. Meanwhile, the SCS pay systems creak at the seams as the Government works at a snail’s pace.” 

Thirlby said that while the FDA “welcomes the SSRB’s continuous attempts to improve the SCS pay system, the Cabinet Office urgently needs to develop fairer and more effective systems in consultation with the unions.”