A Christmas Present for Senior Civil Servants

[bedsit]

A Christmas Present for Senior Civil Servants - Karl Whelan on the Irish Economy Blog

On budget day, the Minister for Finance announced that civil servants earning between €165,000 and €200,000 would take pay cuts of 12% while those earning over €200,000 would take pay cuts of 15%. Yesterday (24th Dec), with the public focusing on their pre-Christmas preparations, the government announced that this would not be happening after all.

These pay cuts have been rolled back for two reasons. First, the government announced that it was going to take into account the elimination of “performance-related awards” which had averaged ten percent of their salary. As a result it reduced the new pay cuts for some civil service grades to reflect the loss of this ten percent …

First, these performance-related awards were, as their name suggests, not guaranteed but (at least in theory) related to performance. This move appears to be an effective admission from the government that these payments were not in fact performance-related bonuses but part of the core pay of these civil servants. For a government that claims to be keen to introduce reform into the civil service (something that should include bonuses as incentives for good performance) this is a very unfortunate precedent.

More in the Irish Times

[Django_Returns]

independent.ie/national-news … 00643.html

HUNDREDS of senior managers will escape the full brunt of savage pay cuts being applied to ordinary staff in the public service.
A special arrangement exempting 150 top civil servants from full pay cuts will also apply to a further 450 senior managers across a string of state bodies, the Irish Independent can reveal.
As ordinary gardai, HSE and local authority workers see their pay slashed, some of their bosses have been told they can keep more of their much larger salaries.
The Department of Finance confirmed yesterday that top pay was being protected.
It said the “exceptional arrangement” for 152 assistant secretaries and deputy secretaries in the civil service will also apply to around another 450 senior public servants.
These include three Deputy Commissioners and 12 Assistant Commissioners in the gardai, senior local authority staff, senior HSE staff and Major Generals and Brigadier Generals in the Defence Forces.
The Government initially said the basic salaries of these senior public servants were being marginally reduced because the pay cuts had been calculated on figures that include a bonus scheme.
But that scheme was scrapped in February last year, meaning the pay cut is being calculated on amounts that no longer apply.
For example, a senior civil servant on €150,712 had a bonus of €15,071 added on to bring his total to €165,783. With a total cut of 11.8pc this seemingly brought his take-home pay down to €146,191. But in reality, with the bonus no longer in existence, the actual cut is only 3pc or €4,521.
In contrast, cleaners in government departments on salaries of €20,000 will suffer a full 5pc pay cut to €19,000.

[onestepbehind]

Wouldn’t this also be about protecting their pensions?
By virtue of the fact that these are senior civil servants they would be nearing retirement and pre 95. Their pensions would be based on the best three years of the last 10 in service.
I wonder also if the bonus’s were pensionable?

[beattie]

@onestepbehind

I wonder also if the bonus’s were pensionable?

Moore McDowell said on VB last night that they were not.

[The_Unwelcome_Guest]

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