NHS: May to Push Pay Rise to Next Year?

Theresa May’s Government is this week expected to give in to growing pressure to abandon its limit on public sector pay, which has been one of the main tools of the “austerity” policy to rein in the deficit in government finances.

But the rise may not flow through to NHS workers, teachers and many other workers until next year, prompting angry reactions from nurses and others who have threatened industrial action unless they get quick relief from the pay clamp.

Police and Prison Officers First

The easing of the seven-year public sector pay cap will begin with police and prison officers before spreading later to NHS employees and other workers whose pay has been either frozen or capped at a below-inflation 1% annual rise since 2010.

The first step will be for ministers this week to accept recommendations by independent pay review bodies covering police and prison officers that they should be awarded rises of more than 1%, with the review body warning that it has become difficult to recruit and retain prison officers in particular.

The Treasury is then expected to issue guidance for other pay review bodies telling them that they should take recruitment and retention problems into account when considering next year’s increases for workers in other public services such as nursing and teaching.

Record-low unemployment has made it especially hard to recruit or retain workers in demanding and relatively low-paid public service roles, especially with Brexit and the fall in the Pound making it harder to attract Europeans for nursing and other skilled roles.

Nurses Are Angry

Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, said it was not good enough for the government to drag its feet on and it should immediately “scrap the cap”.

“I know that nurses, paramedics and firefighters are very angry,” she said, as seven years was “a long time for anyone to manage” with pay restraint.

The Public and Commercial Services Union has already decided to ballot its members on industrial action over the pay cap, and the Royal College of Nursing has warned that it will go ahead with unprecedented industrial action later this year unless Downing Street acts quickly to unwind the austerity clamp-down on 5 million public sector workers.

Larger pay rises could begin next April but the pace and extent of the pay rise plan is not clear.

Rehana Azam, the national secretary of the GMB union, warned that it would not be good enough for the government to slowly remove the pay cap, which froze millions of public sector wages in 2011 and has since limited rises to 1%.

“This damaging policy has seen thousands pinched from public sector workers over seven years,” she said. “If real pay rises are now on the cards it will be a huge victory for the GMB’s campaign and for public pressure on the Government, but the devil will be in the detail.”

“All public sector workers must receive proper pay rises, including those not covered by pay review bodies, such as school support staff, council workers and police staff,” she said. “The Prime Minister will not be able to get away with a sleight of hand on this one – we’re watching very closely.”

Janet Davies, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said that any pay rise “needs to not only scrap the pay cap for future years but go some way towards making up for lost earnings.”

“Nursing pay has fallen by 14 per cent in real terms since 2010, now worth £3,000 each year.”

Pressure from Scotland

Scotland’s First Secretary Nicola Sturgeon increase the pressure on Theresa May’s minority Conservative Government last week by announcing that her administration would lift the pay cap for thousands of public workers in Scotland next year.

Ending the pay rise 1% cap for all 5m public sector workers would cost an estimated £4.1bn a year but Chancellor Philip Hammond is expected to resist a quick end to the cap in his Budget later this year.

When the Conservatives lost their majority in this year’s general election Hammond said the Government was “not deaf – we heard a message in the General Election” but he stressed that pay rises had to be funded. About 31% of public sector workers are in the NHS, with another 30% in education and 20% in public administration.

With inflation running at 2.6 per cent, an average nurse on £31,600 a year would receive a rise of £820 without the cap, while a police constable on £28,000 would gain £730.

Steve Gillan, the general secretary of the Prison Officers Association, said prison workers deserved a 5% pay rise, warning there would be an “unprecedented exodus” by prison guards unless there was a significant rise.

by Peter Wilson

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