When is a Pay Freeze not a Pay Freeze? When you are in the Public sector natch

As we all know the wicked Tories are bashing the public sector with savage cuts in spending and a pay freeze for all staff. Well actually public spending is increasing in real and absolute terms but let us pretend for a second that the Government does actually want to control the deficit and that the Labour party/Trades Unions are not bare faced liars. I digress.

Back to the pay freeze. Well it appears that what has been frozen is not pay itself but the scales of pay that are used. And so a 5 a day co-ordinator working as an outreach worker for disabled lesbians might be in a post where the pay scale is £30,000- £37,000 a year. The wicked Tories have frozen that scale but the co-ordinator can in fact still get an annual pay rise to reflect his or her hard work during the year etc, etc.

And as it happens those deciding on remuneration for the public sector seem to have been fairly generous since the wicked Tories came into power. The Daily Telegraph today reveals that at the Department of Business 44% got pay hikes in 2010 and 34% in 2011. Across the NHS, Police and various Whitehall departments annual pay hikes are part of the contract. And of course, as the Telegraph revealed a couple of weeks ago, more than 100 Civil Servants got bonuses of £10,000 or more last year. And there was I thinking that it was only evil City banksters who got paid bonuses despite us all having to pull together in this age of austerity.

New Speak watch 2012 from Airstrip One. “Pay freeze across the state sector = the vast majority of those in the State sector get a pay rise.” Thank you Big Brother. All is now clear. There have been no pay rises in the state sector in Airstrip One this year. There never have been any pay rises in the State sector since the start of the five year plan because there has been a pay freeze. There will be no pay rises because you are cutting the deficit.