Varying pay rises for the vast majority of public servants are recommended in the report of the benchmarking body, reports Joe Humphreys
IN his introduction to the report of the Public Service Benchmarking Body, its chairman, Mr Justice Quirke, said that the task had proved formidable.
On reflection, that seems like an understatement.
Regardless of one's opinion on its recommendations, one cannot but marvel at the body's ambition in dealing at once with the pay claims of 230,000 public servants.
Such a task had never been attempted in Ireland or overseas.
The body was established in July 2000 amid discontent among public service employees at the perceived manner in which their incomes had fallen behind those in the private sector.
Concern had also been raised over the "bleeding" of high-quality public servants to private business in what were buoyant economic times.
The terms of reference and composition of the body were agreed between public service employers and the public service committee of ICTU, the trade union umbrella group. The body itself was established in line with a commitment of the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF), the latest national pay agreement.
En route to the publication of its report yesterday, the body had to overcome various difficulties, including the refusal of certain unions, such as the ASTI secondary teachers' union, to co-operate with the consultation process.
The body also had to deal with an internal crisis when one of its members, Mr Jim O'Leary, lecturer in economics at NUI Maynooth and former chief economist with Davy Stockbrokers, resigned last April in protest over certain aspects of its work.
Apart from adjudicating on specific awards, the report makes recommendations on certain public service personnel management practices.
In particular, it expresses concern at "the inability of some public service employers to provide adequate information about vacancy levels". Of further interest to public servants will be the report's recommendation of an end to "endemic overtime working", a practice which it says is "unsustainable" and "not in the best interests of employers, staff or consumers".
As regards the recommended salary increases, the report deals with each public service grade individually.
A brief job description for each is listed in the appendices to the report.
Interestingly, most grades are awarded an increase, thereby vindicating the argument that public sector pay rates had generally fallen behind the private sector.
The difference between awards, however, is greater than expected, with as much as a 10-fold margin between certain grades. The lowest pay award, of 2.5 per cent, is to public health medicine specialists; the highest, of 25 per cent, is to ambulance personnel.
The average recommended increase is 8.9 per cent, and while this gives a broad indication as to how the public service will benefit, the devil is in the detail. Every employee in each grade and sector will have different feelings as to whether their value has been properly acknowledged.
An undoubted weakness of the report is the absence of any explanation of how each award was calculated. This, however, was an inevitable consequence of the body's work. Had it not guaranteed confidentiality to the employers and employees under its examination, it would not have received their co-operation.
Whether the body was fair in its recommendations thus comes down to a question of trust.
The fact that two of the six remaining members of the body were former senior trade unionists will help those union leaders in favour of the report to sell it to their members.
Aside from inevitable disappointment among some public servants, the report is likely to draw criticism from private sector sources. Some will say that, in benchmarking, the public sector is getting something for nothing, as it does not entail specific productivity returns.
But this is not entirely true. While the report does not recommend performance-related pay, it does say that the increases are conditional on "relevant modernisation and change", which is to be negotiated locally.
Moreover, the awards, if accepted, will preclude public sector workers from seeking exceptional pay claims over and above the partnership agreements, as they have done in the past.
This, in effect, will be the main gain to the economy as a whole. By prohibiting "follow-on claims from employees within either the public service or the private sector", the report seeks to overcome the traditional practice of public servants' "leap-frogging" one another in pay claims.
It also seeks to pave the way for a new partnership agreement, thereby further strengthening wage control.
The Government has already indicated that the report's recommendations will only be implemented in the context of a successor to the PPF.
It has promised to backdate one-quarter of the recommended increases to December 1st, 2001. However, this pledge was based on the assumption that the report would be accepted in full by the public sector unions.
Whether such acceptance will be forthcoming is far from certain.
Initial trade union reactions have been varied. Those public servants who have been particularly vocal recently in the pursuit of pay claims, such as nurses and secondary school teachers, have expressed disappointment. So, too, have lower-ranking civil servants, who are dismayed to see bigger increases going to their seniors. However, other workers, including primary school teachers, have expressed satisfaction.
The future of the report will be decided if and when the Government and trade unions begin talks on the proposed new national pay agreement.
The Government's warnings over the cost of the awards, and the unions' manoeuvrings, could be seen as initial negotiating positions in this regard. Alternatively, they could be seen as the beginning of the end of the report.
Only after each union has consulted its respective members will we know which scenario is likely to prevail.