Scouts lead pack with 12 per cent pay rise

STAFF AT the Scout Association have earned their "fat cat" badge. The organisation's 190 employees have been awarded an inflation-busting pay rise of 12 per cent this year to stop them deserting the voluntary sector.

The increase - 10 times the headline rate of inflation - follows a comprehensive review of the association's pay structure to ensure it is paying the going rate.

Other employers in the voluntary sector are also modernising their pay structures as competition to recruit and retain staff intensifies.

According to the latest report from Incomes Data Services, staff at a Scottish housing trust were awarded pay increases of pounds 5,000-pounds 6,000 after a job evaluation exercise. Careline managers at Hanover Housing in Edinburgh who were previously employed on salaries of between pounds 17,817 and pounds 21, 246 now earn between pounds 24,569 and pounds 26,050.

"Pay settlements appear to be holding up better in the voluntary sector than in some other parts of the economy," says IDS. For instance, scientists employed by the Imperial Cancer Research Fund have seen salaries rise 10 per cent since last year - which has forced both the Wellcome Trust and British Heart Foundation to review their salary levels.

Of 57 settlements in the voluntary sector monitored by IDS, more than half were in the range of 3 to 3.5 per cent.

The voluntary sector has also woken up to the question of staff working over the millennium. The RSPCA is offering staff a pounds 250 lump sum and quadruple time. Staff at the North British Housing Association will receive four times their basic rate and pounds 125 for being on standby.