If the government doesn’t sort the pay problem, they will very soon see a mass exodus of skilled staff

Senior civil servants giving evidence to Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have admitted that pay is a problem for recruitment and may be storing up huge problems.

Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet Office Alex Chisholm told the committee that pay was often identified as a problem where a recruitment campaign had failed to appoint someone. Subsequently Government Chief People Officer Fiona Ryland said that it was possible that pay decline was storing up problems.

Mike Clancy, General Secretary of Prospect , said:

“It is good to see Cabinet Office officials admitting that pay is a problem for recruitment in the Civil Service, especially where a recruitment campaign has failed to appoint.

“Prospect members tell us this is a particular problem in specialist agency roles where there are direct private sector comparators. This means that more and more, jobs are being done by less experienced people putting increasing pressure on workloads and reducing the ability of agencies to adequately fulfil their functions.

“The officials at the PAC were also right to admit that a decade of poor pay could be storing up an acute retention problem. All of our interactions with members in the Civil Service suggest that that acute problem is imminent and if the government doesn’t sort the pay problem, they will very soon see a mass exodus of skilled staff.”