Local pay incentives

The Business Secretary wants to see pay increases for people prepared to take jobs in areas where the civil service is struggling to recruit. That sounds rather like the London weighting which used to be built into many public sector professional and administrative positions.

The flexibility to incentivise hardto- fill jobs is sensible – but using it as an excuse to reduce the pay of civil servants working outside London is not.

And, unless there has been a change of heart, we already know that regional pay structures are to be a bluntedged sword.

Earlier this year, a leaked notional regional pay map, produced by the Cabinet Office’s Reward, Efficiency and Reform Group, crudely placed the North-East in the lowest pay band.

Carving the country up into regional pay zones will cause skills shortages in low-cost areas. Specialists will go where the money is – hospitals and schools in low pay areas will find it hard to retain the best people.

Trying to address that by sprinkling some areas with extra cash for local pay incentives will pit hospital against hospital and school against school. It will be a bureaucratic nightmare.

Differential pay will create added instability with the fear that well paid areas will poach the best staff from the low pay North-East. The North- South divide already exists – local pay will make it considerably worse.