Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether the payment of bonuses to the directors of NHS Property Services Limited is consistent with public sector pay policy.

Current guidance on pay for very senior National Health Service managers (published by NHS Improvement in February 2017) requires NHS trusts to seek ‘very senior manager’ (VSM) salary approval and NHS foundation trusts to seek an opinion on VSM salaries from NHS Improvement, the Department, the Minister of State for Health and Her Majesty’s Treasury before confirming VSM salaries at appointment, where the annual salary is £142,500 or above. NHS Improvement’s guidance does not explicitly require approval of bonuses.

Cabinet Office guidance on the approval of senior pay requires Chief Secretary to the Treasury (CST) approval for pay and remuneration of £142,500 for all Civil Service appointments and appointments to public sector bodies which are subject to Ministerial approval. CST approval is also required for all new performance pay (“bonus”) arrangements above £17,500 in the same organisations.

Salaries of Director level posts in NHS Property Services (NHSPS) are set by NHSPS’ Remuneration Committee and established through external market benchmarking, which references the current NHS Senior Executive pay scales. Consideration is also given by the Remuneration Committee to the rates prevailing in the market for the post, as well as consideration of salaries in the public sector and other terms of the contracts.