Daily Insight: Finding room for extra pay

Buried at the bottom of Tuesday evening’s NHS pay deal announcement, government revealed it had accepted the senior salaries review board’s recommendation to increase very senior and executive senior managers’ pay by 3 per cent.

In the grand scheme, it may not seem much of an increase – not even 24 hours after the announcement, news broke that inflation had jumped to 9.4 per cent, while the ongoing problems with pensions makes this part of the compensation package so unattractive for many of the NHS’s top earners that they’ve forgone it.

It is, however, a departure from the government’s thinking earlier this year. In its evidence to the SSRB, the Department of Health and Social Care said there was “extremely limited room for any further investment in pay and therefore… financial restraint on pay is needed”.

But the SSRB warned “another pay pause this year or an unduly low settlement would be inappropriate” for this group of approximately 2,500 staff, adding it had observed “well-founded concerns about possible loss of leadership capacity”.

There is a hitch with this plan, however – the government had not budgeted for this pay increase, so it will have to be funded from existing NHS resources.

Because of quirks in the way the award is allocated, some senior staff on bands 8 and 9 – including roles like HR directors as well as clinical roles such as matrons and nurse consultants – are set to get pay rises as low as 1.3 per cent.

But the very senior managers they often answer to – whose salaries are set by a separate review body – can expect a pay rise of 3 per cent.

As Managers in Partnership CEO Jon Restell put it: “Many were already considering their futures in the health service, and this pay cut might just be the final straw… this award isn’t good enough for staff at all levels, but it’s especially raw for managers.”