Way now clear for payment of benchmark deal

Public sector unions and the Government have finalised agreement on work practice changes which pave the way for payment of the benchmarking increases.

Negotiators spent yesterday tying up loose ends after agreement on a number of outstanding issues was reached in late night talks on Tuesday.

A compromise was reached on one of the major sticking points, the requirement that parent-teacher meetings be held outside school hours. Instead, half of such meetings are to be held during school hours from the 2003-2004 school year, with talks on further change in the future.

Other elements of the deal include:

Procedures to avoid strikes and disputes;

Extended opening hours in health and local government services;

Increased open recruitment to the Civil Service;

Introduction of performance management systems to a number of new areas;

Union compliance with "normal ongoing change" without seeking pay increases;

Verification procedures to ensure terms are complied with before benchmarking paid in full.

Payment of 75 per cent of the benchmarking increases recommended last year was conditional on public servants agreeing to this programme of modernisation and change. The first 25 per cent of the pay increases, backdated to December 2001, was recommended with no strings attached.

Increases averaging 8.9 per cent, which will add €1.1 billion to the public sector pay bill, were recommended for the State's 275,000 public servants. Mr Peter McLoone, the general secretary of the largest public sector union, IMPACT, said the agreement would "open the way for better public services". The public would get more efficiency and value for money and suffer fewer industrial disputes and less disruption of services, he said.

At the same time, public servants, if they accepted the package, would secure average combined pay increases of 15.9 per cent. Other public sector unions, such as the CPSU and the Irish Nurses Organisation, are known to be less enamoured with the benchmarking body's findings. Even if they reject the deal agreed yesterday, however, it could still be adopted as part of an overall new national pay deal, to be voted on by all unions in both the public and private sectors.

Mr McLoone said he believed staff would "buy into" the deal. "It heralds real change, but it is fair and forward-looking. It's a win- win deal for the public and those who serve them."