Staff at the Pensions Regulator in Brighton are to strike for two weeks in a dispute over pay.
The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) said that more than 1,000 civil servants based at the regulator’s Brighton offices will take action from Tuesday 5 September to Monday 18 September.
The regulator believes that only about 150 members of staff in Brighton belong to the PCS union.
The union said that they had been offered a 3 per cent pay rise while civil servants in other government departments would receive at least 4.5 per cent.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “Our hard-working members at the Pensions Regulator demand to know why they’re deemed worth less than their colleagues elsewhere.
“They’re furious at finding out the government is treating them as the poor relations of the civil service.
“If ministers want to end what will be disruptive strike action, they can treat these workers fairly and with respect, offering them at least the same pay rise everyone else needs to help them through the ‘cost of living crisis’ and beyond.”
The Pensions Regulator said: “We value our staff highly and hope to achieve a successful resolution with the PCS union as soon as possible, within our current performance-related pay structure that is fair and equitable.”
Will anyone even notice?
1. Will any of us notice any difference?
2. Another contributor to pushing up inflation.
Solidarity
Yes, do we really need these people, all they do is check up on other people doing their jobs. Like a lot of civil servants, money down the drain. Get rid.
This logic is how we ended up with rampant fraud and rivers full of effluent. Effective regulators are one of the most necessary parts of government. Without them, private enterprise races to the bottom.
So true. Capitalism unchecked is a race to the bottom. Without standards enforced by regulators you end up with all sorts of undesirable outcomes. The key is effective regulation.
Pubis sector salaries have no impact on inflation! And ‘these people’ are checking up on others who are NOT doing their job. I know I used to work there. The Pensions Regulator may not be perfect but it is very active in protecting pensions from the actions of dodgy employers.
Where do your think the money comes from to pay for civil servants – the “magic money tree” or general taxation?
Unless Pension Regulator staff are paid based upon savings in public expenditure achieved by stopping fraud then they are just another overhead.
Let’s assume for the moment that money to pay civil servants comes from taxation (it doesn’t, but that’s a longer story). Has your headline tax rate gone up recently, by up to 10% in the past year? Is it forecast to increase by 4% this year?
No, your tax rate has not increased. Therefore, increasing civil servant’s pay is not a driver of inflation. It’s the other way around: inflation is the driver of the request for higher pay, for people to simply tread water to be able to pay for essentials that have increased in price while pay has remained static.
Paying civil servants based on revenue brought in or saved to the exchequer is a bad idea and leads to unexpected consequences, given the powers that many of them have; HMRC and Traffic Officers are two examples.
Peter offers a lot of bark, but generally no bite, when it comes to his comments I’ve found in the past, John. He’d do well to research into the topics he advocates in the future.
Thanks Benjamin – perhaps you’d like to explain how civil servants salaries are financed.
True that my personal tax has not gone up by 10%, but inflation means tax receipts increase and if personal allowances are not increased then income tax will increase receipts at a faster rate.
So if taxation does not fund the civil service from either businesses or individuals where does it come from – public borrowing, just printing more money, increasing government efficiency or reducing waste?
Perhaps you would like to explain where it comes from, and I love your fear of civil servants having to achieve results rather than, I assume, automatically getting a fixed salary with cost of living increases no matter what they do (apart from avoiding making mistakes)?
I take it that you have never worked for a company that needs to make profits, and works in a competitive environment 🙄
At 67 years old Peter, I’m not going to patronise you by explaining how basic economics works, instead I’m going to suggest that you, again, read into the topic. I’d be happy to have a conversation once you can make a coherent point.
Go on Benjamin – partronise me and using your massive intelligence and understanding of economic theory, please explain where the funding for “public servants” comes from – so far all you seem to be able to do is make immature insults.
Perhaps tell us what your surname is and what your occupation is rather than pathetically hiding your identity. As with John Walker I’d wager that you also have never worked for a company that needs to make profits, or worked in a competitive environment.
Are these “hardworking members” still working from home? Or are they still on an extended holiday, like other civil servants?
PCS haven’t said 1000 staff will take action. I’m not sure TPR even has 1000 staff!
People I knew that worked there said they were overpaid and they were over staffed with lots of people that seemed to do not a lot on very high salaries in many cases. Why do they for instance need so many lawyers on six figure salaries. A good argument for cutting the staff by 20%.
How short sighted most of these comments are. Tell me you don’t know how much the civil service does without actually telling me.
And for the record, the tax payer contributes precisely nothing to TPR, it’s actually all laid out on their website. As a local employer of fairly significant size, it’s not that hard to just find this out.