TOP civil servants' salaries should not be pegged to private sector norms because their positions are not open to applicants in the private sector, the Review Body's report says. The recommendation is sure to annoy senior civil servants, who have seen private sector executives' pay soar in recent years.
"We believe that the closed nature of the recruitment market for secretaries and assistant secretaries, i.e. the fact that all appointees are drawn from within the Civil Service, means that internal differentials should be a more important consideration than external comparisons in dealing with the pay of these grades," the report concludes.
The Government said last night it accepted in principle the review body's recommendations and that the question of implementation of the rates which would flow from these would be considered in the context of the Partnership 2000 pay deal.
The review body said it could find no evidence that the existing rates of pay for senior civil servants were hampering the State's ability to retain high-quality staff within the Civil Service.
In a conclusion likely to provoke dissent from assistant secretaries, the report says the task at this level has not become significantly more difficult and the existing salary scale, £45,816 to £52,689, should continue to apply.
The review body also suggested that the performance-related pay scheme should be increased from four to 10 per cent of the pay bill for assistant secretaries. Observers said last night that because the performance-related element of remuneration is not pensionable, this recommendation was unlikely to find favour with the civil servants themselves.
Secretaries of Government Departments should not be put on to performance-related pay before a planned new management structure is put in place, the report says, but the issue should be examined in the next review.
In the absence of this, it was important to reflect the real-life differences in job size and difficulty among Departments, the report continues. At present, there are three separate rates for secretaries of Departments, at £86,478, £81,896 and £77,316, with the Department of Finance alone in the top category and, for example, the Department of Tourism and Trade in the bottom.
The report recommends there should be four new categories, with increases to £91,500 - for the Secretary of the Department of Finance - £86,478 (for most of the group now on £81,796) and £81,896 (for many of the secretaries now on £77,316). However, there will be no increase for some secretaries, who will remain on £77,316.
This would mean significant pay increases for all secretaries of Departments, except for those attached to the Departments of Health (who will remain on £81,896) and Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht; Defence; Equality and Law Reform; the Marine; and the Office of Public Works (who will all remain on the lowest grade).
For other grades, the report said that IMPACT, one of the Civil Service unions, indicated it had serious reservations about performance-related payments but believed that members of the relevant professional grades should have access to the same level of remuneration as assistant secretaries.
"These views reinforce our concern that performance pay is viewed in some quarters largely as a mean of securing higher levels of remuneration," the report says.