To think this is appalling? (Civil Service salary)

[MrsSchadenfreude]

Having a clear out the other day, I found some old payslips from 2001 when I was an HEO in the civil service. I was earning just over £27,000. I thought I would have a look and see what an HEO earns today. Outside London, the starting salary is £27,150, with those in London getting £30,388. So virtually no rise in 20 years!

Or is it just for SCS that this is the case?

Not sure - it might have just been SCS because they were the first to be always advertised externally.

Everyone knows that CS pay is crap.... but my god the benefits far outweigh it! (Pension, security, flexibility etc.)

No they don't. Not any more.

Exactly. My pension terms and conditions are unrecognisable to the ones I signed up to.

Now imagine the pittance you get as the lowest grade civil service employee in a low paid department. E.g: the people processing paperwork, taking payments, scanning and uploading documents. A lot of the time, they’d be better paid working in retail or hospitality. And people wonder why we’re struggling to get passports, DVLA theory tests are hugely backlogged, benefit waiting times are through the roof, Lasting Power of Attorneys applications are delayed etc.

Pay in the third sector has been static for a decade or more. Many Colleagues have left. You can't live on it any more. Outside London, 22k. Hasn't gone up in a decade. The unsocial hours, giving up your weekend for events.

20 years ago junior drs started on £27k and a year of free accommodation including bills. Today they also start on £27k and don’t get any accommodation, so have essentially had a significant pay cut.

Same in Retail, I started on £18k 23 years ago and the same role is only c.£22k now.

HEO, same salary for 12 years £30k. No pay scale, no increases its appalling.

I'd have earned alot more by now if I'd stayed in my old job. This is why CS are leaving in their droves and will be striking.

Don't you have unions for civil servants in the uk?
Reading this page with my jaw on the floor, and grateful for Forsa

I’m an HEO outside of London and in (I think) the smallest department. Salary is 32k-37k. It was 30k-35k in my old department. I’ve seen some jobs advertised at this grade starting around 28k and there’s no way I’d consider that adequate. Similar to various other public sectors, pay freezes and docking of benefits that compensate have been huge in the 16 or so years I’ve been a civil servant.

There are CS unions and they are the ones organising the first targeted strike being the Border Force.

Fast Steamers (graduate scheme) have also voted to strike.

Which scheme are you in to get a lump sum that large?

The old classic final salary scheme pays 3 x your pension and the new Alpha scheme doesn't automatically pay any - you only get a lump sum if you give up part of your annual pension payment.

Yup. Higher Education too. We’ve had c.25% salary erosion over the last 15 years or so.
I haven’t had a pay rise of more than 2% over that time. Deductions have gone up (NI, tax - Scotland, and pension contributions). Most of us take home less now than 10 years ago.

Classic plus Alpha. Those figures are direct from my portal, so are correct. It’s based on 100% lump sum. If I change that my lump sum is less of course and monthly higher

The benefits are certainly less than they were 20yrs ago. But the civil service defined benefit pension is certainly more generous than many private sector pensions. I hear staff at work complain it’s not all the time and I direct them to the CSP pension portal to look at the pension modeller as it gives an indication of what your pension will look like at retirement age. People look at the annual benefit statement and think they will get that when they won’t, that’s based on now, not 20-30yrs more. Someone told me their lump sum was zero on the pension modeller, and genuinely believed it. She allowed me to go on it and look, and it was set to zero lump sum instead of 50-100% for example. She was pretty pleased with the real amount. It’s 30% of your salary monthly generally plus fairly large lump sum, which I think is generous.

People tend to sign up for flexibility and pension, and we are certainly flexible. This works for people with other responsibilities, children, elderly parents or both. That’s not changed, if anything it’s more flexible than 22yrs ago when I joined. With hybrid working now many parents are saving on after school charges as can now take a late lunch to collect kids from school. School plays, sports days, hospital appointments, I’ve never had to miss any.

30% of a shit salary isn't much!

Sure it's decent if you are a higher earner but very many are stuck at AO/EO level and after decades haven't even climbed to the top of the pay grade.

Hybrid and flexibility again depends on the role you do and the department you work for.

I disagree that people should be working and looking after children who are under 8/9!

Hybrid also does not exist at all in some job roles! In my department, there are roles that cannot wfh at all because of the security implications of accessing public record outside of the site.

Typically, the roles that this impacts the most are aa, AO and eo. So not only do they get paid peanuts, they also have a ‘benefit’ that is not available to them. Our AA pay is 1p higher than the national living wage. It’s no wonder people are leaving in droves.

The pension isn’t particularly remarkable any more. DH worked for an American bank and the pension model was that your employer paid in 40% each month and the employee paid nothing. Given the much higher salary too, he built up as much in two years at the bank as I did in six years in the civil service.

The one big benefit of the civil service as I see it is that it is basically impossible to get fired. Double edged sword: you also have some people working with you who are crap and wouldn’t get a job elsewhere.

Im a civil servant because I have young kids. I’ve put in years, I may as well get the flexibility benefits now. But it’s bloody disheartening at times.

30% of a shit salary isn't much!

But most private sector workers are ALSO paid shit salaries, and only get an average of 8% and little or no job security.

No job security in CS either, again another myth.

Also turns out there government haven't been adding 2% of the employer pension contributions to the pension pot. Another reason why they are striking.

Thank you to whoever said to look at CSP pensions portal. I wasn’t aware of that and it’s pretty amazing!