§ Mr. Peter Griffithsasked the Minister for the Civil Service whether he will invite the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service to examine the claim of professional and technical officers that their remuneration has traditionally been established above the median level following comparability studies by the pay research unit.
§ Mr. ChannonNo. The claim by the Institution of Professional Civil Servants on behalf of professional and technical staff falls within the terms of the Civil Service arbitration agreement, which provides for pay disputes to be referred to the independent Civil Service Arbitration Tribunal. This machinery has operated successfully for over 50 years in resolving differences over Civil Service pay claims, and is entirely appropriate in this case. I have therefore urged the institution to take its claim to the tribunal if it cannot accept the official side's offer, and I have confirmed that I will stand by its award. I very much regret that it has chosen instead to take industrial action for which there can be no possible justification. There are no grounds for departing from the established machinery in this case.
§ Mr. Peter Lloydasked the Minister for the Civil Service if he will list the conditions he has attached to his current pay offer to Government scientists in order to avoid repercussions and misunderstandings in negotiations in future years; if he will explain the grounds on which the Institution of Professional Civil Servants has rejected them; if he accepts that the sample of private sector rates on which pay awards to professional and technology staffs are negotiated is drawn up in a different way from samples used for providing comparisons for other Civil Service grades; if, because a different sample is used for professional and technology staffs, it has been an established 318W principle since the Priestley commission reported that professional and technology settlements should always be substantially above the average of the private sector rates revealed by the sample; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. ChannonBoth the IPCS and I have agreed that a ring fence should be put round the 1979 pay settlement for the science group of the Civil Service in order to avoid repercussions and misunderstandings in the future. I am happy to say that agreement has now been reached in a form of words which both sides accept will achieve this.
The sample of organisations surveyed by the Pay Research Unit for the professional and technology pay research exercise is, under the Civil Service pay agreement, the responsibility of the independent director of the unit. In his report the Pay Research Unit Board for 1979, the director stated that the unit had constructed the external field in accordance with the Priestley criteria.
The director does not identify the P&T survey as being in any way different from the surveys conducted in respect of other grades, and I do not therefore accept that the sample for it is drawn up in a different way from that for other grades. The director did not have the ultimate responsibility for the fields under previous pay agreements under which past settlements were negotiated and it is not possible to be specific about the reasons for the particular details of those settlements. Because the current survey for the P&T group has been conducted on the same basis as that for all other civil servants, the Government's offer to the P&T group is also founded on the same basis. I could not justify an offer above the average outside rates for any one particular group; in the Government's view all civil servants must be treated equally and fairly. I regret that there is still disagreement between my Department and the IPCS on the pay of the P&T group of the Civil Service. Such disputes should be resolved by reference to the independent Civil Service Arbitration Tribunal, as has been frequently done in the past. I urge the IPCS to go to arbitration. The Government will accept the award of the tribunal. I very much regret that industrial action is still going on. There can be no justification for this.