NIPSA met yesterday with the Finance Minister, Conor Murphy, and Officials from his department for an early discussion in relation to the Public Sector Pay Remit. The remit has, for the first time, been set within the Finance Budget which is out for consultation.
NIPSA will be commenting separating on the Budget 2022 -2025, but the purpose of yesterday’s meeting was to set out our thoughts on NICS pay.
We impressed upon the Minister the impact on members of below inflation pay rises over many years and the current impact of high inflation on the cost of living which has forced some members to claim tax credits or take second jobs to try to make ends meet. We expressed our hope that a 3-year budget would give the Minister some scope to address this.
It is an established fact, as demonstrated by the Assembly’s Spend Local voucher scheme, that putting additional money into the hands of workers benefits the wider economy. This is reason enough to give workers higher pay awards, but we also impressed upon him the sterling work done by civil servants through recent difficult times because of COVID and the significant levels of vacancies within the service.
We referred to the line in the Public Sector Pay Remit which states;
“Departmental pay increase assumptions typically average 2% per year………There is scope to offer increased awards in support of efficiency and reform.”
We impressed upon the Minister that Civil Servants deserve a significant award that does not come with conditions or strings attached that would require us to give up any of our terms and conditions.
The Minister has agreed to consider the points we raised with him.