Civil servants have a very specific role, that of
implementing government policy.
They are answerable through the civil service code and ensure
unbiased continuity of government through successive administrations.
The current government continues to attack the very people
who ensure the social infrastructure of this country is up and running. Instead
of representing their constituents, too many MP’s prefer political spin and the
use of special advisors paid by the public purse.
Staff in the Ministry of Defence (MOD) were today informed,
not by the MOD or even their representatives, but rather by the Telegraph and
Daily Mail that the MOD under Ministerial direction was to rip up their people
strategy and steal a third of their performance pay.
Performance pay was brought into the civil service as a
government directive, supported by the conservatives as an incentiviser under
the free labour market ideology.
That ideology is now to destroy the civil service and the
services they provide as they are made to pay for the folly of the bankers that
created this country’s deficit.
In the MOD, the payment of performance pay as a way of
motivating and getting the best in support of the front line was created by
attacking consolidated and pensionable pay.
20,000 civil service jobs have gone within the MOD since the
Strategic Defence and Security announcement and defence capability is now worse
than that of many developing countries. Morale in both the military and
civilian side of the department is at an all time low.
The articles in the Daily Mail and Telegraph are
disingenuous , they don’t tell the whole story.
Civil servants are not paid in line with the private sector,
they are actually paid less in many instances and are undergoing a cut of up to
20% in their take home pay.
Minimum pay scales have had to be uplifted in the past to
ensure they complied with the minimum wage.
The MOD has confirmed with great delight that it has closed
its funding gap yet at Ministerial direction the department has been forced to
rob their staff of performance pay that they had honestly earned.
The defence cuts cost capability, lives and livelihoods.
It is no wonder that in a recent survey of staff working in
the MOD it was said:
“this government is destroying goodwill, capability and
lives in defence. We need a safe set of hands that values the military and
civilian components that underpin this country's defence capability”.
We want a Fair Deal in Defence that supports the frontline,
Mr Hammond, the Secretary of State for Defence wants political point scoring.
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