The union representing Northern Ireland’s civil servants has branded a pay offer from the Department of Finance as an insult.
Nipsa (the Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance) said a proposed hike in pay of £552 for each worker is “the most derisory and insulting pay offer received by any group of workers” while also hinting that strike action is imminent.
“In the midst of a cost of living crisis where everyone is struggling to make ends meet, a pay offer of that magnitude is just an insult and is significantly less than has been offered to any other public servants, even those their awards are also derisory,” the organisation’s General Secretary Carmel Gates, speaking in a recorded video posted on the Nipsa’s website, said.
“We have no choice but to fight and to join the action of our sister unions.”
The offer amounts to an increase of less that 2% given the average wage of a civil service worker in the province is £28,706, according to the Northern Ireland Civil Service’s own data.
Neil Gibson, Permanent Secretary at the The Department of Finance, said he regretted that he was unable to offer a higher increase, pointing to the constraints placed on his budget by the Secretary of State’s budget last year. Chris Heaton-Harris was forced to step in to set a budget for Northern Ireland in the absence of an Executive which has been unable to sit since local elections as a result of the DUP’s standoff over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
“I know you will be very disappointed that the offer is not much higher,” he said in a letter to civil service staff. “It is a matter of deep personal regret that the pay offer is at the level it is.
“I wish the pay offer could have gone much further, however, we are constrained by the very difficult budgetary position.”
He said any increased offer would be detrimental to public services.
“Pay awards must be affordable in the context of each Department’s budget settlement as set out in the Secretary of State’s Northern Ireland Budget for 2022/23,”he said. “Departments have had to make a number of difficult decisions to live within their budget meaning there is no additional funding available for NICS pay without impacting on the services that we provide to the public.”
As well as the £552 pay increase, the offer includes “contractual, performance-related progression” and bringing up the pay of the lowest paid staff, such as those in administrative assistant posts and analogous grades, including Industrial 1 staff, to the Living Wage Foundation rates of £10.90 an hour or £21,053 annually.
