Incremental pay progression allows individuals in the public sector to move up a pay scale in line with their length of service and George Osborne is proposing to put an end to this practice

Osborne describes pay progression as "at its best antiquated; at worst, deeply unfair” I can't help but think that he is failing to understand the wider implications of such a move.

I felt truly proud to work for the public sector and relished the opportunity to work for an organisation that I valued as a member of the public; okay the salary was lower than I could achieve in the private sector but there was the promise of steady and transparent pay progression and the motivation of knowing what reward you could achieve if you were loyal, worked hard and met your objectives. Is it such an outrageous scenario to reward people for their length of service and the knowledge and value this brings?

The public sector’s limited recruitment and retention strategy means that incremental pay rises are vitally important. Now, let me put this into some perspective as we all know that money is not the only motivator. During my time working for the public sector, I was never provided with milk or tea bags; office tea clubs are the norm (now let’s talk about antiquated!). If I wanted anything other than a Biro or white A4 paper, I would go and buy it myself as there was no stationery budget for highlighters or tip-ex, or if there was it wasn’t worth going through the approval process to get it. There was constant pressure to save money and I attended many meetings where we were asked how to cut resources from our own teams and were advised that we had to accept that we could no longer provide a 'gold star' service; bronze would have to do. Training and development is hugely restricted, there are no overtime payments, there simply is no money for anything other than the bare essentials and organisations are struggling to attract and retain good people. In the education sector, for example, schools in the poorest areas will be hit the hardest by this move as they cannot afford to pay for the best teachers who will simply move elsewhere.
Contrast with my experience of the private sector; kitchens stocked with essentials, plus luxuries such as chocolate, team building days, bonuses, fully stocked stationery cupboards, Christmas parties and private health insurance. I know that not all private sector companies are lavishing their staff with glitzy parties and free chocolate in the fridge, and there are many companies struggling to survive. But, if you’ve ever come out of a stressful meeting at 4pm on a Friday afternoon desperate for a cup of tea and you find that someone has stolen your milk and your colleague whose turn it was to buy the tea bags has forgotten, or if you have ever needed to prepare a file for a dismissal meeting and find yourself rushing to Tesco to pay yet more money on a ring-binder, you’ll know how important these ‘antiquated’ public sector processes are to those who are working there.

Keeping skilled people in the public sector is a challenge and pay progression is a valuable tool; removing this benefit will lead to many more people leaving the sector – and these will not be the people that the organisations will want to lose. There is of course an argument that set incremental pay increases do not inspire or motivate people to improve or deliver more and there will always be people who do the bare minimum and those who work extra hard with the potential that they will both receive an the same increment. Instead of demotivating and punishing all employees, I believe the Government should focus on introducing more effective leaders to run the public sector in line with the real values of the new public management. The quality of leadership and lack of a business-like approach is an issue which, in my opinion, contributes to inefficiencies and difficulties faced by the sector, leading to the need for dramatic cost saving measures. Quite simply, we need leaders and a culture which says 'no' to poor performance and is not overly risk averse.

While pay progression seems generous and above and beyond what other people receive, it is the only way to develop and progress and it is a rigid structure with zero flexibility. You could go above and beyond every day, continually exceed expectations and be working beyond your grade yet depending on your length of service and grade you may still only receive one increment, potentially of a minimal amount, knowing there is no potential for anything else. And did I mention that you still have to buy your own milk and post-it notes?

Missing from Osborne’s proposal is any attempt to address the gap that the removal of pay progression will leave and to mitigate another blow to the public sector’s employer brand. Given the choice, our best people will take their chances with the private sector, and the government should, in my humble opinion, be leading the way in promoting our public services and the rewarding work available.