Prison officer pay row:

SCOTLAND’S prison officers are to receive a controversial £2,000 bonus payment over the next 12 months despite the majority of public sector workers looking at one per cent in salary rises.

The Sunday Herald has obtained an email from prison chiefs stating the payment was for “significant changes to the role of prison officers” caused by reforms to the service.

However, the deal was met with anger by a union whose members are subject to the Scottish Government’s one per cent cap on those earning more than £22,000, and a maximum increase of £400 for those on lower salaries.

The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) said prison officers deserved a pay increase, but claimed it was wrong that the rest of the public sector workforce had not been made a similar offer. A £2,000 lump sum was handed to prison officers in 2015 in a similarly controversial deal with the Prison Officers Association (POA).

Justice secretary Michael Matheson, below, told MSPs in March 2015 that the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) had decided “the one-off payment for prison officers is made in recognition of a specific set of circumstances unique to their frontline role”. However, the SPS has now agreed to pay its prison officers £1,000 in the spring and the same amount next year.

The PCS said ministers needed to explain why prison officers were treated as an “exceptional” case. National officer Lynn Henderson said: “A second substantial award only for prison officers is way above the cap for the rest of the public sector, despite a parliamentary commitment in 2015 that this was a ‘one-off’.” Labour MSP Neil Findlay said: “I’m sure that NHS and local government workers and others will be seeking a similar deal.” Details of the pay deal for the POA were revealed in an email from Eric Murch, director of corporate change at the SPS. Murch stated that the extra payment had been made because prison officers had had to accept changes to their role over a longer period of time than had initially been expected. He said: “We anticipate significant changes to the role of prison officers which will demand a degree of flexibility and willingness to adapt to new working arrangements. These payments are in recognition of prison officers’ continuing engagement to delivering this.”

A Scottish Prison Service spokesperson, in response to the PCS criticism, added: “We’ve made very clear that the payment is in recognition of prison officers’ commitment to the change process.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The SPS is working on a new operating model which will deliver a modernised prison service, responding to the changing demands of Scotland’s justice system. Frontline prison officers will be disproportionately affected in the transition to the new model, which will see considerable changes to the way they do their job, and mean they will need to learn new skills.”

The Sunday Herald made a number of attempts to contact the Prison Officer Association Scotland but received no response.