PAY RISE REWARD FOR OUR VIRUS HEROES
FRONTLINE workers helping battle coronavirus are to be rewarded with inflationbusting pay rises.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak will today announce nearly one
million public sector employees will be given a salary hike worth up to 3.1 per cent.
The pay boost will be in recognition of the “vital” contribution they made during the crisis.
Teachers and doctors will be given the biggest rises but extra cash will go to police officers, the military, senior civil servants, judges, prison officers and dentists.
More than 350 healthcare workers have died after contracting the deadly virus, many while caring for patients.
Mr Sunak said: “These past months have underlined what we always knew – that our public sector workers make a vital contribution to our country and that we can rely on them when we need them.”
Although the Government is facing huge strains on finances, it has accepted the recommendations of independent pay review bodies that assess the salaries of around 900,000 public sector workers. Mr Sunak said it was “right” to sign off real-terms pay rises after frontline workers helped get the country through the worst of the pandemic.
It means doctors will be given a 2.8 per cent hike while 450,000 teachers will see a 3.1 per cent rise in their pay packets.
Armed Forces personnel will receive a two per cent increase while police and prison officers will take home an extra 2.5 per cent.
Senior civil servants and the judiciary are being given a two per cent rise.
Lucille Thirlby, assistant general secretary at the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, said they were glad the efforts of its members were being recognised.
She said: “We welcome that the Government has accepted the Senior Salaries Review Body report in full and that the SSRB acknowledge the exceptional efforts being made by senior public service leaders in extraordinary times.”
The pay rise follows the settlement for more than one million NHS workers who continue to benefit from a three-year pay deal.
Under the agreement, starting pay for a newly qualified nurse has increased by more than 12 per cent since 2017/18. Nurses who are still moving up their pay structures will receive an average 4.4 per cent rise this year.
A Treasury document leaked in May set out analysis showing that a two-year public sector pay freeze could generate savings of £6.5billion by 2023/24.
The Tories had imposed widespread pay curbs to deal with the impact of the financial crash.
But Boris Johnson hinted he would reward public sector workers in a major speech last month on his plans to revive the country after the Covid-19 crisis.
And he also told his backbenchers that anyone who suggested there would be a public sector pay freeze to help cover the massive costs of the coronavirus “can sit on it”.
The Prime Minister has told of his personal gratitude to the doctors and nurses who saved his life after he was struck down with the disease.
He also promised the country would not return to the austerity years it suffered in the wake of the 2008 financial crash. When he left hospital, the PM described the
‘These past months have underlined what we knew – that our public sector workers make a vital contribution to our country’
health service as the “beating heart of this country” and described how it was “powered by love”.
Mr Johnson gave son Wilfred the middle name Nicholas after two of the doctors who helped save him – Dr Nick Price and Prof Nick Hart.
Around a quarter of all public spending goes on pay, with the bill in 2018/19 hitting nearly £191billion. For most of the workers it will be the third inflation-busting rise in a row. Britain’s Consumer Price Index rate of inflation is just 0.6 per cent, well below the Bank of England’s two per cent target.
The Government has signalled it will need to take the economic situation into account when it is making future pay awards.
TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “These rises are welcome, but there’s a long way to go to restore pay after a decade of real-terms cuts. Many public sector workers, like job centre staff and local government workers, aren’t getting these rises. They deserve a decent pay settlement too.
“And the Government should urgently announce a pay rise for social care workers, who put their lives on the line to care for others during this pandemic.”