Merit awards `extended to all public pay'

THE GOVERNMENT is to push ahead with plans to extend merit-based pay throughout the public services despite union threats of possible industrial action against "elitist" pay awards.

Jack Cunningham, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, yesterday signalled Labour's determination to revolutionise salary structures by offering "incentives" and "rewards" for high-achieving teachers, doctors and nurses.

Britain's 1.25 million public sector workers will today learn the pay rises they can expect from April when the Government announces its response to independent pay review bodies.

Teachers and doctors are expected to get an average 3.5 per cent rise, nurses will get 4.7 per cent, while senior civil servants and the armed forces may get upto 3.5 per cent.

There will be large variations within each profession, however, as junior nurses are to get 11 per cent rises to attract more recruits to ease the NHS crisis, while primary school heads will get 9 per cent.

Britain's biggest union, Unison, warned that industrial unrest was likely if ministers pursued their strategy of giving large rises to some while freezing the wages of others.

But the Government is determined to press on with plans to bring to life Tony Blair's vision of a more "meritocratic" society, and performance- related pay is likely to be extended across the public services.

Mr Cunningham yesterday confirmed union suspicions of a "divide and rule" pay system when he admitted that half a million public sector workers would receive "significant" increases and that there would be "differences and variations" within individual professions.

An indication of the new approach will be revealed later this week when a new grading structure for nurses is unveiled. The system is sure to widen pay differentials. Millions of pounds are also being set aside in merit payments for doctors, and performance-related pay may see pounds 2,000 bonuses for high-achieving teachers.

Mr Cunningham said in a BBC interview that it was time to modernise pay structures to ensure that they had "sensible" rewards and incentives to attract and retain exceptional staff.

Keith Sonnet, assistant general secretary of Unison who has presented a 10 per cent wage claim on behalf of 1.4 million local government staff, believes there is considerable potential for industrial unrest.

The Government is to spend over pounds 250 per nurse on an advertising campaign aimed at tempting back those who have left the NHS. The pounds 5- million recruitment drive, with the slogan "Nurses make a difference", is part of the Government's bid to boost numbers by 15,000 over the next three years.