This publication examines the next steps in modernising public sector pay.
Creating more user-centred and efficient public services has been central to New Labour’s domestic policy agenda. As with any large-scale organisational change, winning the acceptance, of staff is a crucial and difficult part of the challenge. Despite major revisions to public sector pay and the fact that public sector workers have enjoyed several years of unprecedented wage rises, support from public sector workers is often lacking.
A major finding of the paper is that greater equity of service provision will rely on increased local variation in public sector pay within a national pay bargaining framework. Private firms with large numbers of outlets have sophisticated gradations of regional pay. The public sector should adopt a similar model if London and the South East are to avoid a serious shortage of key public sector workers.
