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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Paul Goggins): The fifth report of the Prison Service Pay Review Body (PSPRB) on the pay of governor and officer grades in the Northern Ireland Prison Service was published yesterday.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has accepted the recommendations which are in two parts. The basic increase will be implemented from 1 April 2007 and the efficiency award will be implemented following confirmation from the PSPRB that the efficiency element of the package has been delivered. The cost of the award will be met from within the existing budget allocation for the Service.
Copies of the report have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair): Further to the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, at Treasury Questions, on the Government's response to the reports of the pay review bodies, the 29th Report of the Review Body on Senior Salaries was published yesterday. This makes recommendations about the pay of the senior civil service (SCS), senior military personnel and the judiciary. Copies were laid in the Vote Office and the Library of the House. I am grateful to the Chairman and members of the Review Body for their work.
The Review Body's main recommendations for senior civil servants' pay are:
1. Changes to SCS pay ranges as follows:
Pay Band | Minimum£ | Recruitment and Performance Ceiling£ |
2. The bonus pot for the SCS to be increased by 1.1 percentage points to 7.6 per cent. of the paybill and for the minimum bonus to remain at £3,000; and
3. The Permanent Secretaries' new range to be £139,740 to £273,250.
The Review Body broadly endorses the Government's strategy for senior reward but places a slightly greater emphasis on bonus awards rather than base pay awards, with a recommendation of a headline award of 1.4 per cent.
In line with the approach taken across all pay review body groups, the Government have decided to accept the recommended headline award of 1.4 per cent., which is less than the Government proposed in evidence. The recommendation for bonus awards is also being accepted, but payment will be delayed until 1 November 2007.
The Review Body's main recommendation for the senior military is an increase of 2 per cent. in the incremental pay scales for senior military officers. In line with the approach taken across all pay review body groups, the Government have decided to accept the recommendation, as this is in line with what the Government proposed in evidence.
The Review Body's main recommendation for the judiciary is an increase averaging 2.4 per cent. for judicial salaries.
In line with the approach taken across all pay review body groups, the Government have decided to accept the recommended headline award of 2.4 per cent. but are staging this to ensure affordability within existing spending limits and consistency with continuing control of public finances. All office holders will receive 1.5 per cent. with effect from 1 April 2007, and the balance of the recommended amount will be paid with effect from 1 November 2007.
Members of Parliament and Ministers
The Review Body's recommendations on SCS Pay mean that Ministers' and MPs pay, which is linked to the average increase in the midpoint of SCS pay, will
increase by 0.66 per cent. The Review Body is also currently conducting a triennial review of MPs' and Ministers' pay which is due to report in summer 2007.
The cost of the awards for the SCS, senior military personnel, the judiciary and Ministers will be met from within existing Departmental Expenditure Limits.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. James Plaskitt): The Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council was held on 22 February in Brussels. There were no health or consumer affairs issues. I represented the UK.
The first items were the preparation for the Spring European Council and the Tripartite Social Summit through the endorsement of a set of key messages to the European Council.
Ministers endorsed the key messages from EPSCO to the Spring European Council. There were calls for new EU minimum social standards but they did not receive much of an echo as there was more interest in the strengthening of the social dimension of the Lisbon process. Nine member states, led by France, said the joint letter they had signed last week supported the presidencys goal of strengthening social Europe. I endorsed the broad focus of the key messages, and stated that there was a lot the UK could support in last weeks letter, e.g. the idea of social Europe supporting working people and citizens more widely in particular the most disadvantaged; the need to uphold European values of cohesion, solidarity and social justice; and the emphasis on lifelong learning, equal opportunities and poverty. However, it was important also to emphasise flexible labour market and the dismantling of barriers to mobility. I added that the means by which we promoted these objectives were important as the existing body of directives already provided the basis for fair and decent minimum standards, and we were not persuaded of the case for further new minimum social standards. We should focus instead on delivering Lisbon and our individual National Reform Programmes. The presidency concluded that the European social dimension needed common objectives, notably on combating poverty, especially child poverty and social exclusion. Migration could be covered too, even though it had not been mentioned in this meeting.
The Tripartite Social Summit on the eve of the Spring Council would discuss the Commission's strategy for 2008 and better regulations.
The Council adopted a resolution on the contribution of older people to economic and social development in the context of demographic change in Europe. It debated the process of open co-ordination on demography and the presidency's idea of a European Family Alliance. I emphasised the primacy of the Lisbon goals and process, and the vital importance of increasing labour supply. After a table round of very similar interventions, the presidency concluded that all delegations supported its
approach. There was no need for a new process. The Lisbon Strategy and the existing Open Coordination would suffice.
Work under the Family Alliance and the High Level Group on Demography could be accommodated within them, and that the Commission's Annual Progress Reports would assess progress.
Under other business, the Council noted the annual Work Programmes of the Employment Committee and the Social Protection Committee for 2007, and the Commission reminded members of its recent communication on the New Community strategy on health and safety at work 2007-2012, which will be raised again in May.
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