The long term pay decline hitting PCS members
PCS civil service members have endured an unprecedented, long term, decline in real pay by grade, with a consequential lowering of pension entitlement. This decline has directly hit longer serving members, but has also impacted younger members, who start on lower salaries and are unable to reach the devalued maxima with no clear process for pay progression (automatic or otherwise).
These problems are structurally compounded: lack of pay progression; a delegation system that produces arbitrary pay differences for same grade but in different “delegated” “bargaining units”; thousands of AAs, AOs, and EOs sitting together on the legal minimum wage.
Further pay stagnation & decline for PCS members
Last year the Government indicated that it wanted to limit public sector pay to 2.5% in the evidence it made to various pay review bodies (PRBs), including that for the senior civil service. That would be lower than inflation, which is now being pushed higher by Trump’s war and the corresponding impact on prices. However, this year the PRBs for the NHS, doctors, dentists, and prison guards recommended 3.3-3.5% rises and the government has accepted them. Other PRBs may make similar recommendations.
In the light of these developments, the Government’s pay remit for civil servants below the Senior Civil Service might allow for a higher award than 2.5%. But, even so, a 3.5% remit would still likely result in further stagnation or decline for many PCS members, especially as the impact of price rises on core household spending, like energy bills, is not felt equally by all.
What PCS Should Do
To bargain with leverage, PCS needs to build a real national campaign, covering all our members, including those in privatised areas, to press on key membership issues such as pay, pensions, jobs, and freedom and flexibility over how and where we work. PCS needs to recognise that keeping members properly informed is a prerequisite for building a membership campaign and a membership-led union. The “coherence” solution for a national civil service that is so badly impacted by pay delegation is to return to national pay rates, national pay rules, and national bargaining across the Civil Service and for outsourced workers on Government contracts (as part of a strategy to insource them). We say a lot more on our website and we want members who agree to join us, because our view is LU is failing on all fronts by being too passive, to the detriment of members.
No mobilisation under LU
In May 2025 attendees of an official PCS fringe meeting on the eve of Conference, chaired by the President and addressed by the General Secretary, were told that “PCS conference should be a launch pad for a renewed mobilisation to win on pay, pensions and job security.” LU has not mobilised to win, despite Conference policy, and members are losing as a result. LU is not even keeping members properly informed.
Last month the General Secretary and President issued LU-propaganda in the guise of PCS Branch Bulletin BB-22-26 (‘the BB’). It was supposed to be an update on the Fighting Fund and talks with the Cabinet Office “in respect of the national campaign”. They said they “…are seeking an agreement on pay, job security and an expansion of more flexible ways of working, including hybrid working” but they then said nothing more at all about job security and flexible working, issues that are supposed to have been the subjects of talks for a long time.
Leadership optimistic on pay but no membership gains to report
The BB does not suggest that this year’s pay remit will provide all members with an inflation-proof or above inflation award. The GS and President nevertheless see “cause for optimism” because “we have won the argument with the Cabinet Office for greater coherence and the prioritisation of the three most junior grades. They have confirmed that this is now their primary focus for this years’ pay round. The question now is whether or not we are able to convince the Treasury to fund improvements”.
In plain English, this means that PCS has not reached a national agreement on pay; has not reached agreement on rebuilding the value of our pay and substantially addressing other major problems; and still has to persuade Treasury to fund the unidentified possible “improvements”. The BB does not even say whether PCS was in direct “talks” with Treasury!
The disappearing “cautious optimism” over the end of delegated pay bargaining
In December 2025 “News from the NEC” said, “There is some cautious optimism over our core demand to end delegated pay bargaining and to introduce more coherence through national pay bargaining – though there is nothing concrete at this stage.” But the possible end of delegated pay does not feature at all in the March BB “update” we are told nothing “concrete” about the “greater coherence.”
The employer’s disappearing proposals to end low pay
The December NEC News also said, “The employer recognises the structural low pay and the issues of grade compression…and has promised to come forward with proposals ahead of the new pay remit in April 2026.” But come the magical BB “update” and the issue of the employer’s proposals also vanished – not a word as to whether proposals were even received by PCS.
No false dawns just LU mis-selling
In a bid for cover in case their optimism ends up in membership disappointment, the GS and President warn, “Given that we are attempting to unpick over three decades of delegation on pay, and noting that there have been false dawns before, we should continue not to raise expectations unduly.”
It is a false narrative. There have not been any “false dawns”, just shoddy goods mis-sold to members by LU and warned against, at the time, by the PCS IL. When LU wrecked the 2022/23 national campaign without securing even one of the pay demands for that pay year, they claimed to have “won” national talks about changing civil service pay structures to deal with low pay and other issues. And here we are three years later, with the same but worsening pay problems. LU similarly claimed to have secured a commitment to talks on strengthening redundancy avoidance measures. Today PCS is still seeking such protections.
Not serious about taking action
The GS and President state, “…we must continue to prepare for an industrial response should such an outcome not be forthcoming.” Conveniently, they do not state what “outcome” would render “an industrial response” unnecessary and they do not state what the national union is already doing to prepare for action, to ensure the union is ballot ready, and able to win a ballot (we are just told they are “continuing”). The LU BB statements are woefully unserious, at best, when LU recently presided over a failed ballot of DWP members.
LU has failed: time for change
Governments are to blame for the depression of our pay and other terms and conditions. But it is the job of union leaders to anticipate attacks and to devise strategies and tactics to win against such attacks or at least ameliorate them. The LU leadership of PCS has failed on these basic trade union terms for many years.
In December 2023, the current (LU) GS, at that point President of PCS and GS elect, told readers of LabourList, “…[PCS members] desperately need pay restoration…they haven’t had a real-terms pay rise for more than 11 years.” Actually it was thirteen years (pay was frozen in 2010 and 2011) and our LU GS was, as she pointed out, central to the PCS leadership for much of that period.
A little earlier, when standing again for President, the now GS noted, “Our members saw the lowest pay offer in the public sector, we’re overpaying on our pensions and household bills are going up all the time. In my department, DWP, over 25,000 workers will see their pay fall below the National Living Wage. PCS members are struggling to make ends meet” and further “I lead negotiations on behalf of PCS…” Indeed.
The current President (and his LU associates) held national and DWP leadership roles throughout the period that saw the pay of DWP AAs, AOs, and EOs repeatedly overtaken by the minimum wage.
Time for change
In the current NEC elections we urge you to vote for a new President – Bev Laidlaw – and a new NEC:
President – Laidlaw
Vice-Presidents – Clarke, Heemskerk, Semple, Wesley
NEC – Awen, Brittle, Chown, Clark, Clarke, Criddle, Dale, Day, Evans, Foggett, Fry, Goulart McNerney, Hamer, Hawthorne, Heemskerk, Hodgson, Lawton, Laidlaw, Menezes-Jackson, Norris, Oseroff-Spicer, Ritchie, Rosser, Semple, Sheridan, Smullen, Spencer-Guney, Wesley, Williams, Young.