MOD Pay 2024

PCS submitted our national pay claim to the Cabinet Office in February this year.

The AA and AO grades are perilously close to the National Minimum Wage despite there being clear distinctions between the grades and the EO grade being sucked into this equation too.

To address these issues our pay demands for 2024/25 to the UK government include:

• a cost-of-living rise, with an inflation proofed increase plus pay restoration
• pay equality across departments on the best possible terms,
• a living wage of £15 per hour,
• London weighting provision of a minimum £5,000 per year,
• 35 days annual leave minimum,
• a significant shortening of the working week with no loss of pay.

Since the claim was submitted, we have a new Labour government and there was also the announcement of the pay remit of 5%. With CPI inflation figures for July 2024 at 2.2%, for the first time in a very long time there is the prospect of an above inflation pay rise for staff in defence which, while welcome, only starts to scratch the surface of pay restoration. Since 2010, median annual pay has fallen between 15 and 38% in the civil service, depending on the grade and inflation indicator.

A decade of Tory cuts has left the pay system in a real mess. A pay system that took years to wreck will no doubt take years to restore. PCS pay negotiators will attempt to ensure staff get the best deal we can for this year, but our ask to the department and Cabinet Office is that the structural problems of pay in defence and the wider civil service need to be fixed, too. The new government appears amenable to these concerns which broadly correlate with their own priorities.

At this stage we can only deal with what’s on the table, and talks are ongoing with the employer, but there is some distance between the PCS pay claim and what the pay remits has offered. When we do get a best and final offer the PCS Defence group executive will review this and see how it compares to the national pay claim.