Because the awards are lower than expected, little attention has been paid to the reasoning behind them, writes Jim O'Leary
Predictably perhaps, media coverage of the report of the Benchmarking Body has concentrated on the reaction to the recommendations from trade unions and from the Government. There has been little attention paid to the reasoning behind the awards. This may be due in part to the fact that the average increase proposed by the body is a good deal lower than expected, and hence a source of relief in some quarters. However, the nature of the report itself has probably been a factor in this regard. It is a model of opacity. It provides the absolute minimum amount of information.
The report, published on Monday, runs to 280 pages. Of these, 75 are taken up with a bald presentation of the pay recommendations while 125 are given over to a set of generic job profiles in respect of the grades examined by the body. Of the balance of the report, a significant proportion is taken up with background material: terms of reference, excerpts from the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness and the like. A very high-level discussion of the body's research methodology takes up nine pages. A chapter entitled Personnel Issues in the Public Service merits two pages, while a discussion of Issues Impacting on Pay Recommendations is afforded five pages.
In an article published on this page last week, I set out three grounds upon which I argued that an objective case might be made for public sector pay increases.
The first of these relates to recruitment and retention. If it can be demonstrated that public sector employers are unable to compete effectively for staff with the private sector, then a prima facie case exists for raising pay. Recently published CSO data, which shows employment growing faster in the public than in the private sector, strongly suggests that public sector employers in general have not been experiencing this difficulty. The Benchmarking Body's report furnishes no evidence to the contrary either at a general level or in relation to specific grades.
Indeed, scattered references aside, the body's report devotes just four paragraphs to the issues of recruitment and retention. These paragraphs contain the following statement: "The body was concerned at the inability of some public service employers to provide adequate information about vacancy levels and the effect of their recruitment policies over time." In the same vein, the following observation is offered: "Anecdotal evidence, while important, is not a suitable basis for planning future personnel needs and associated pay levels." One senses a diplomatic pen at work.
The second basis upon which significant pay awards might be justified is equity. Loosely put, a case may be made for public sector pay increases if it can be demonstrated that public sector pay has fallen behind pay in the private sector. The methodology chosen by the body to explore this issue was Job Evaluation, which assesses the relative "sizes" of jobs, based on the demands and requirements of those jobs, and prescribes pay adjustments on the basis of comparable pay for comparable worth.
The report contains no discussion, even at a general level, of what the research findings showed. Interestingly, it avoids making the claim, at either a general or specific level, that public sector pay is below comparable private sector pay. It offers no evidence to refute the conclusion that might reasonably be drawn from published CSO data, namely that public sector pay has, broadly speaking, kept pace with private sector pay in recent years. As near as the body gets to providing an insight on this score is when it speaks of it being led "to acknowledge the importance of the median value of the comparative private sector data, together with the other significant considerations from its terms of reference, as being important criteria in making its specific recommendations". Three days after publication, I have given up in my attempts to figure out what meaning this might have, or indeed whether it's intended to have any.
Nor is the report any more illuminating on the matter of how the body made allowance for differing pension entitlements, security of tenure, benefit-in-kind and the other dimensions along which there are systematic differences between employment terms and conditions in the public and private sectors.
Last week, I invited readers to consider the position of public sector grades in respect of which there is no evidence of recruitment and retention problems and no evidence to indicate that pay is out of line with comparable private sector jobs. In such circumstances, are there other grounds, in the context of the benchmarking exercise, upon which pay increases might be justified? The body's terms of reference would suggest that there are, and that they are to be found in the area of modernisation and change. In particular, the terms of reference seem to offer the option of linking pay awards to specific change on a grade-by-grade basis.
In the event, the body has chosen to make 75 per cent of the amount of its awards conditional upon agreement relating to issues of adaptability, change, flexibility and modernisation "at the appropriate local bargaining levels". What status should we ascribe to this conditionality? How meaningful are the resultant negotiations likely to be? Are they likely to present anything more than a light and readily circumnavigable impediment to the payment of the full award?
One critical question that springs to mind is this. How can you explain to one group that they have the capacity to achieve a pay increase of just 2-3 per cent on the back of agreeing to an agenda of modernisation while another group can achieve a 15-18 per cent increase on this basis?
The Benchmarking Body offers nothing by way of clarification on this front. But then, the body offers precious little by way of explication, clarification or elaboration on any other score either, and apparently doesn't intend to do so in the period ahead. Paragraph 2.27 of the report states: "Having delivered its report and recommendations to the Minister for Finance, the body will make no further comment on its deliberations or upon the detail of its report."
An important principle that guides the legal system here and elsewhere is that justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done. The proper functioning of a democratic state requires that this sort of principle apply to other public institutions too. Citizens should not be expected to accept Delphic utterances from people in authority simply because of their status. This is all the more so when large amounts of taxpayers' money are at stake.
Implementation of the Benchmarking Body's pay recommendations will cost in the region of €750 million net a year. I submit that those who will foot this bill deserve a lot more openness, accountability and transparency than they have been afforded to date.
Jim O'Leary lectures in economics at NUI Maynooth: he was one of the original members of the Bench-marking Body but resigned in April.