Making case for a pay rise - public sector

[Reluctantadult]

Has anyone in the public sector / civil service successfully made a case for a pay rise? Can you give me any tips?

I've been doing my role 6yrs and £400 off the bottom of the pay scale. Due to pay freezes and capped rises. I'm looking for other jobs but really I love what I do and don't want to leave.

Thats a very low annual bonus for my experience of CS, usually it is around 3 or 4% or your salary depending on performance score. that sounds more like a special in year bonus.

Lazypuppy which bit of the public sector have you worked where bonuses and 2 or 3% pay rises are a thing?

MOD, we've just had between 3-5% pay rise depending on performance score, plus 1 off bonus as % of salary. Been the same for past 5 years or so if not longer

@Lazypuppy i work in a non departmental public body. This year we got 3% pay rise which is actually the highest we've had in 10yrs maybe. But it was unevenly spread so the lowest paid got more. So not everyone will get 3%. Then if you got a box 1 performance you got a couple of hundred as a one off bonus. We don't have increments. The unions have been on pre strike action so nothing has been agreed yet. So not seen any pay rise yet.

I'm wondering what to do tbh. I love my job and don't want to leave. But it's not stress free. I'm on £32k if I was full time. I have got a degree, a masters, 18yrs work experience, and am working above my pay grade. I did an interview for a lower grade job in a sister organisation that starts on £36k this week. I don't want to take it, I want to ask for a pay rise. I realise it'll fall flat. My head says leave. My heart says stay.

I am Very institutionalised. Does this sound like a bad deal?

You have to ask. You know they’ll probably say no but it’s worth a shot and then you can make your decision with all the facts.

we’re in very very similar circumstances. Same level qualifications / experience. same salary. NDPB.

my team had just experienced a massive wave of resignations (v unusual for us, we’re historically a stable team) and every single one of them has cited the impossibility of pay progression as their reason. It’s a huge huge problem.

Maybe it's the same place, @Handsnotwands@Handsnotwands

Whoops!
Also just not being able to fill vacancies, for years. They just get readvertised round in circles. No applicants. Or no one passes the interview bar. Interviews being horrifically difficult.

Do you think you might be offered this job? If so, you could use it as bargaining power possibly.

That's not how public sector pay works. The manager almost certainly won't have any discretion to increase her r salary, even if it means she leaves. Organisations lose good people like this.

No, I guessed that was probably the case.

Re whether you leave or not, you will need to consider your pension and how that might be affected. Would you be able to transfer it?

The pension and annual leave is not as good it's true.

You must be DE&S. I am MOD Main and we don't get performance scores or bonuses, and in spite of being awarded an AOC Commendation for my excellent work, I have only received one InYr Reward in the past 9 years, because, you know, that means someone in the LM chain would have to put in about 15 mins of effort. I line manage one person and I make sure she gets an award or two every year. We are STILL waiting to hear what our pay rise is going to be. It's been no more than 1% in the past few years.

I used to work for a NGDB for many years.

I was bored shitless in that job yet earning nearly £40000 a year to be bored. Most people would be happy to be paid that much to be bored, but not me personally. And it bugged me that colleagues were being paid that much to internet shop etc whilst I was begging to be given more work.

I'm now in the third sector, earning £10000 less a year, not getting pay rises, working much harder, but bloody love my job. Reading my ex colleagues on social media complaining about no pay rises, I don't have much sympathy for them as they don't realise how easy they have it.