Civil Servants: Pay

(asked on 22nd April 2022) - View Source

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of recent civil service pay freezes on employee recruitment and retention.


Answered by
Heather Wheeler Portrait
Heather Wheeler
This question was answered on 27th April 2022

Recruitment and retention data covering the period of the public sector pay pause is not currently held. In 2020/21, Civil Service turnover (includes all moves out of the Civil Service) was 5.9%.

In light of the pay pause, which was necessary in order to help protect public sector jobs and protect investment in public services, the Government ensured that the lowest paid across all of the public sector were protected. Anyone below a full time equivalent salary of £24,000 received an uplift of £250 or the new National Living Wage rate, whichever was greater. This was c.128,000 civil servants around the time the pay pause was announced in November 2020.

As the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced on October 27th 2021, the temporary public sector pay pause will be lifted. Pay awards will be made to public sector workers over the next three years as we return to a normal pay-setting process. It is for departments to monitor and consider their recruitment and retention challenges when determining future pay awards.

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