E20 Pay for Senior Civil Service (SCS) Staff

Background

The Senior Civil Service (SCS) is a central resource with a common framework of terms and conditions and arrangements for career management and training across Government Departments. The Minister for the Civil Service has not delegated SCS pay to individual Departments but departments have discretion within certain parameters. The total reward package for the SCS is designed centrally to attract, retain, engage and motivate senior leaders, professionals, and specialists of the right calibre to deliver business objectives.

Each year the independent Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) recommends the range of performance awards for base pay and the minimum bonus payment.

Each department has to have a Pay Committee and Pay Strategy in place to show how the department will manage the process in line with Cabinet Office Guidance.

Compliance Tasks

1. Each April - Jobholder agrees with manager priority business objectives or targets that will ensure eligibility for consideration for performance related pay.

Task assigned to: All Staff, Line Manager

2. End April - Following end of year performance reviews for previous year, the manager makes recommendations on base pay and performance related award for the jobholder

Task assigned to: All Staff, Line Manager

3. May - Director Generals hold moderating meetings for SCS staff on base pay and performance related pay.

Task assigned to: Director

Senior Leadership Comittee (SLC) Task

4. End May - DFID SCS SLC consider pay and performance recommendations for all SCS on relative basis

Task assigned to: All Staff

5. Each October - SSRB asks Director of Human Resources (HR) and 3 SCS members (identified by DFID SLC) to say how the pay system operated in DFID.

Task assigned to: Head of Department, Head of Overseas Office

Risks of non-compliance

• DFID accused of breach of equal opportunities policy, risk or equal pay claim and ultimately taken to Employment Tribunal or court
• Poor staff morale, impacts on recruitment and retention
• Legal challenge to DFID for acting incompatibly with the 1998 Human Rights Act (HRA).

Associated learning and skills

HR Staff who administer pay and allowances on the PS Enterprise payroll and database must undertake mandatory training on the system before they are permitted to process pay, allowances or receive the system guidance manuals.