The Daily Echo 13 December 2007

Written by Sandra Gidley MP on Thu 13th Dec 2007

It has always struck me that it is any Government's best interests to try and keep the public sector workers relatively happy. After all, they are frequently the workers at the "coal face" who will deliver the Government agenda. This does not mean that these workers should be able to hold the Government to ransom but I would contend that change can be negotiated. With regard to the day to day running of things there needs to be a degree of trust between Government and the public service workers.

It might also be useful for any Government to bear in mind that, in any league table of public confidence ratings, parliamentarians are near the bottom (along with estate agents and journalists) and nurses, teachers and the police generally top the league.

Pay is important and generally does not become a political football. An independent pay review looks at nurses pay and earlier this year they recommended a 2.5% pay increase. The Government decided to stage the implementation of the award which means that the actual annual increase is only 1.9%. Many nurses are up in arms about this, particularly those who did not see an increase in salary under "Agenda for Change" which reviewed nurses' salaries. No one south of the border was comforted by the fact that the full award was implemented in Scotland.

More recently I have received a flurry of letters from police officers. Their pay deal was referred to an arbitration panel and the police agreed to be bound by their decision. The result was a recommendation for an increase of 2.5%. Even prior to the decision being made many police officers felt there was a case for their employment terms to be put on an equal footing to those of other public sector workers - some thought they should be allowed to take industrial action.

Since the Home Secretary's decision not to backdate the pay award, effectively reducing the annual increase to 1.9%, this feeling has hardened considerably. I can fully understand that the police feel unsupported when they have had considerable demands placed on them in recent years and always done their best to deliver.

Motivating a work force is not all about money but in the absence of any other initiative to motivate then the focus on pay becomes key. It becomes a symbol of how workers are regarded by their paymaster. Public service workers who have seen recommended pay awards cynically manipulated by Government feel undervalued and I am sure will vote accordingly when the time comes.

Published with kind permission of the Daily Echo