This week the government decided to again limit the pay rises for NHS staff; a decision which means that for 7 years running pay for NHS staff has been frozen or limited to 1%.  The Inflation index (Retail) shows as 3.2therefore that the reality of the situation is that this is a pay cut and not a pay rise.  In 2016, the government had set a cap on public sector pay rises at 1%, despite which in February IPSA (the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority) awarded MPs a pay rise of 1.3% – an increase which followed (by nine months) a pay rise from £67,000 to £74,000.  The 1.3% was justified through the consideration (in the figures for Public Sector pay rises) of promotions and bonuses.  (This year, the pay rise for MPs is expected to be 1.4%.)

As the pay rise recommendations for MPs are from an independent body, so too are the pay rises for other public sector workers.  For the NHS, pay rise recommendations stem from the NHSPRB (Pay Review Body).  The recommendations from the various Pay review Bodies are often used as a justification for a lack of equality in treatment between services, however, before we accept that this is the case, perhaps we should consider that the PRB (NHS PRB) works to a published Terms of Reference.  The terms for the NHSPRB include the following key points:

“In reaching its recommendations, the Review Body is to have regard to the following considerations: 

• the funds available to the Health Departments as set out in the Government’s Departmental Expenditure Limits;
• of the overall strategy that the NHS should place patients at the heart of all it does and the mechanisms by which that is to be achieved;”

 No government therefore can remove itself from the list of influential factors for the pay recommendations for staff, since the PRB’s remit is to consider the funds available within the Government’s Expenditure limits.  The PRB therefore cannot be considered a fully independent body, and is empowered merely to partition the money which government has already allotted.  In this way we can see that any government must irrevocably accept the responsibility for the principal factor in the consideration of pay rises: the budget.  Furthermore, the government must accept the recommendation once it has been made…  All of which means, that despite the apparent independence of the analysis behind the recommendations for a public sector pay rise, there is in fact a very evident political agenda.

The justification for this pay rise therefore must come from the government which sets the budget.  If we consider in tandem with this that the pay rise for one public sector (the NHS) differs from that of another (the MPs themselves) then we can argue that any financial reason for such differences is entirely disingenuous.  The amount of money in the budget therefore is irrelevant, only the manner in which that money is partitioned is relevant.  Such a decision is by nature political and not financial, and as such, it must be explained and justified to the electorate.

In this example therefore, the government should be called to explain why they believe that the MPs are worthy of a higher pay rise than NHS staff.  Should it transpire that the government of the day believes that the staff of the NHS are paid too highly, and that this should be changed, then this policy should be declared publicly so that the electorate can be made aware of the reasons behind this decision.  Likewise, if it is the intention of the government to reduce the pay of NHS staff with the explicit aim of reducing the number of NHS staff (via a negative impact moral or the ability of people to remain employed in the NHS) then surely the government has a duty to announce such a policy too?

I would argue that whatever the reason behind this policy, it behoves the government of the day to announce it.  The pay of public sector workers (or anyone) should not be used as a behind-the-scenes political shortcut.  If the government of the day have a policy, then in all good conscience this cannot remain hidden.  Our political leaders are not selected to implement hidden agendas or to obfuscate their purpose from the electorate; they are selected to govern the country according to a declared agenda or manifesto, and to this end, the policies that are implemented should be in line with such aims.  To defend therefore a 1% pay rise for NHS staff (whilst also justifying a larger pay rise for other sectors) by claiming independence from a recommendation which in turn stems from the budgets that they themselves allocated is blatant hypocrisy.

Our political process is intended to produce a government which can represent the wishes of the people – based upon an openly declared manifesto and allegiances.  The delegation of responsibility to proxies, who are at the same time hamstrung via regulatory and budgetary constraints is nothing short of cowardice.

On a final note – it is ‘accepted’ custom that pay rises are awarded for either performance or alignment to a change in living standards.  It is perhaps worthy of mention then that MPs have no performance measures for their job in any way; not a single target for attendance, debates, votes… nothing.  In which case, surely there can be no performance related pay for MPs at all, only pay increases for a change in living standards; in which case, unless the standard of living for an MP has decreased more quickly than that of a midwife, one wonders what can lay behind their own pay recommendation?  Maybe the increase in salary from £67,000 to £74,000 in 2016 was inadequate to its purpose…