Performance pay

Sep 23 2010 Buckinghamshire Examiner

IT MAY be painful, but Buckinghamshire County Council (BCC) is right to make its staff prove they are worth their salaries by introducing performance-related pay.

Those who are good at their jobs, who provide value for money, have nothing to feel disgruntled about. They will still get their pay rises.

Those who do work less effectively will have to raise their game. And quite right too, when they are being funded by the taxpayer and enjoy better conditions, longer holidays, more training and, in many cases, better pay than they would in the private sector.

The lowest paid will be protected, presumably, following the announcement by Chancellor George Osborne at his emergency budget in June that anyone earning less than £21,000 will be exempt from the two-year public sector pay freeze he has imposed.

Those BCC employees who find themselves affected by this in April will no doubt be thankful that they are still in a job, as BCC is also about to make 500 members of staff redundant.