Senior Salaries (Hansard, 28 February 2002)

§ The Prime Minister

The 2002 report of the Review Body on Senior Salaries, which makes recommendations about the pay of the senior civil service, senior military personnel and the judiciary, together with the annual uprating of Parliamentary salaries, is being published today. Copies are 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 main recommendations of the Review Body are: Senior Civil Service (SCS): an increase from 1 April 2002 of 2.5 per cent. to the Government's final indicative rates for the minima, target rates and maxima for each pay band and a new band for Permanent Secretaries; a minimum bonus payment of 3 per cent. or £2,000, whichever is the higher, for those making the greatest contribution; and a sum equivalent to 0.4 per cent. of the total SCS pay bill to be made available for use by departments to address anomalies; Senior military: an increase from 1 April 2002 of 2.5 per cent. in the value of all points on the new incremental pay scales; and Judiciary: an increase from 1 April 2002 of 8 per cent.

The Government have decided to accept these recommendations in full for the senior civil service and senior military. The award for the judiciary will be staged, with 3.6 per cent. payable from 1 April 2002, and the remaining 4.4 per cent. payable from 1 April 2003.

The cost of all the awards will be met within existing departmental expenditure limits.

Pay increases for Members of Parliament and Ministers are linked automatically to the increase in pay bands for the senior civil service. Their pay entitlement will therefore increase from 1 April 2002 by 2.5 per cent. In addition they will receive the second and final instalment of £2,000 recommended by the Review Body on Senior Salaries in its forty eighth report of March 2001.

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