Pay restraint has protected 200,000 public sector jobs, says Treasury chief

More than a million public sector employees in Britain were awarded a one-percent pay raise Tuesday by the government, but union leaders hit back describing the raise as disappointing and saying it was not enough.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Greg Hands, said around 200,000 public sector jobs had been protected thanks to the average one percent pay policy.

The pay raise, due in April, will apply to staff within the National Health Service (NHS) as well as the British military.

Hands, said: "Our armed forces, NHS workers, and prison officers do a brilliant job serving our country, but with an increasingly turbulent global economy, pay restraint continues to be a key part of our plan to finish fixing the public finances."

"The independent pay review bodies have worked hard to bring forward a balanced and affordable set of recommendations that delivers on our commitments to increase pay by an average of one percent across the workforce."

The government said it had accepted in full the recommendations for an average of a one percent pay increase, which will apply to the armed forces, NHS staff, doctors and dentists.

Staff in the prison service will receive a slightly above average pay increase of 1.36 percent.

"The public sector pay bill makes up over half of departmental resource spending, so continued pay restraint remains central to the government's deficit reduction strategy," said a Treasury spokesman.

But Christina McAnea, from the public sector trade union UNISON, said the one percent rise was discouraging.

"Government pay policies since 2010 have seen most health staff lose thousands in real terms; nurses are down more than 4,700 pounds (6,677 U.S. dollars) since then," she said.

"This one percent pay rise falls way below what health workers need and deserve after years of pay cuts, especially as changes to national insurance and pension contributions will absorb much of this miserly increase," McAnea said. Endit