Below inflation pay award for most NI civil servants

Low-paid workers will have their wages increased to the Real Living Wage level of £10.90 an hour or £21,053 a year

A below inflation pay award will be imposed on most Stormont civil servants from June.

The £552 award will apply to all non-industrial staff, apart from the lowest paid, and be backdated to August 2022.

Low-paid workers will have their wages increased to the Real Living Wage level of £10.90 an hour or £21,053 a year.

Talks with industrial unions are continuing about the Department for Infrastructure's Roads Productivity Bonus Scheme.

Civil servants from the Nipsa union are due to strike on 26 April in protest at the pay award.

Official figures suggest the typical full-time civil servant in Northern Ireland was paid £28,706 in 2022, meaning an extra £552 is equivalent to 1.9%.

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The pay award is for the 2022/23 financial year.

The Department of Finance said: "A formal offer was made to trade unions on 6 January 2023.

"The challenging financial position has prevented any improvement being made on the formal overall pay offer made to trade unions.

"Following negotiations, it has not been possible to reach agreement with the recognised civil service trade unions on the overall pay award."

Civil servants from the Nipsa union are due to strike on 26 April in protest at the pay award

At the time of the pay offer, the senior official at the Department of Finance, Neil Gibson, said it was "a matter of deep personal regret that the pay offer is at the level it is".

The general secretary of the Nipsa, Carmel Gates, said the offer was "derisory and insulting".

Stormont budgets are under extreme pressure and the Secretary of State, Chris Heaton-Harris, has told the officials running departments that any pay deals must be affordable.