The Scottish Government announces a three-year 9.3% pay rise for civil servants.

The Scottish Government has announced a multi-year public sector pay rise, which will give civil servants an average increase of 9.3% over the next three years.

The new public sector remuneration policy for 2024-2025 sets the framework for salary increases for civil servants and other public sector officials for this year and the next two years.

The pay agreement applies to officials working in the Scottish Government – excluding senior civil servants – and those working in 71 public bodies such as the Scottish Prison Service, the Risk Management Authority and Historic Environment Scotland.

Finance Secretary Shona Robison said “this multi-annual inflation framework provides public sector workers with certainty and a significant degree of wage recovery compared to expected inflation projections by 2027.”

The Scottish Government said the 9.3% increase – which is made up of three 3% pay rises – compares with a projected inflation rate of 5.7% over the next three years. She calculated this by taking the average of the Bank of England and Office for Fiscal Responsibility forecasts for 2024-25, 2025-26 and 2026-27.

Robison said the multi-year approach “provides certainty for public sector workers and an opportunity for the Scottish Government, employers and trade unions to plan and transform our public services to improve outcomes for the people of Scotland”.

“The public service’s most valuable and important asset is its workforce,” Robison said.

“Our approach to public sector pay in recent years means that people in key public sector roles in Scotland now earn on average 6% more than in the rest of the UK, showing that we have supported public sector workers through the crisis related to the cost of living crisis.”

The pay framework document states that after tax, the average full-time public sector worker now earns around £1,500 more than the average in the UK public sector, up from around £430 before the pandemic. Before tax in Scotland this figure is around £2,400 higher. The gap between public sector pay in Scotland and the UK is widest among the lower paid half of workers.

Robison said the pay announcement “continues our journey to build Scotland’s economy and create the prosperity needed to support the people of Scotland – underlining our commitment to strong public services”.

“Scotland thrives when organizations that support the people of Scotland thrive and I am confident that the new pay policy will help workers achieve exactly that,” she added.

The policy establishes an overarching framework for pay, with public authorities having the flexibility to develop their own pay proposals which take into account workforce planning and local pay issues such as recruitment and retention, equality and the impact of low pay on other workers.

The framework encourages employers to take into account their own HR profile, local data, the views of employees and trade unions, and equality issues when formulating pay proposals.

Employers are also encouraged to consider “a progressive approach to pay, which may include a cash basis, a higher percentage increase or a non-consolidated cash payment.”

Public authorities covered by the framework have the option to apply the framework for one, two or three years.

The pay policy document also outlines what the Scottish Government would have to do to give officials a higher pay rise, which would include receiving more funding from the UK Government and introducing cuts to staff.

He says the UK Government will have to allocate extra spending on pay deals, which will boost the Scottish budget through the Barnett formula and have additional consequences for Scotland. However, he says that with the relatively larger number of public sector workers in Scotland, as well as higher wages for public sector workers in Scotland on average, bringing pay into line with the UK deal in Scotland costs more than the consequences received, and providing more generous pay deals in Scotland increases to widen the gap in financing.

“The additional expenditure on pay arrangements in Scotland compared to the UK must therefore be met by cuts in spending in other areas, redesign of services, reductions in staffing or increases in taxes or levies,” it says.

Adding to this point, Robison said: “The Scottish Government operates on a de facto set budget limiting what can be achieved through pay policy. “We have defined a fair framework within our budget. To increase spending on public services and public service workers, it would be necessary to change the UK’s spending plans.