MoD Wordle

No doubt most of you will have read the recent reports in the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail stating that MoD civil servants have earned in excess of £47 million in bonuses in the last six months. The Telegraph starts the article with this sensational comment:

Civil servants at the Ministry of Defence have been paid £47 million in performance bonuses so far this year despite claims that troops in Afghanistan lack essential equipment.

Unfortunately the articles don’t tell the whole truth which is that MoD bonuses are imposed on the staff by a cabinet office ruling, which says that a bonus element must be included in any pay deal. What this really means is the minute pay increase for MoD civilians is mostly payed as a bonus which means it is not pensionable.

It is the usual spin & lies by the media to inflame public opinion so that it agrees with the policies to cut public services. What the papers also fail to say is that MoD staff are currently receiving an ‘imposed’ three year pay deal, which in effect has meant a pay cut for many members of the lowest grades.

The following is the PCS response to he Daily Telegraph:

12 November 2009

Dear sir,

If civilian staff in the MoD were receiving huge bonuses, the anger expressed by families of soldiers on the frontline would be understandable, but it’s not true.

Recently over 1,000 MoD civilian staff had to receive an emergency payment because their pay had fallen below the national minimum wage and the department have this year cut the pay and pension of the lowest paid staff.

Most of our 16,000 members earn less than £20,000 per year. After years of pay restraint, the current system means that these low paid civil servants receive paltry, non-pensionable, one-off ‘bonuses’ of between £300 and £400 instead of fair annual pay rises.

No one is more angry than our members about the mismanagement of defence by politicians, private consultants and senior management.

Our members work directly on the frontline alongside the military providing training, security, procurement, storage, distribution and critical support.

MoD civil servants are working around the clock to support the military and will continue to do so despite the impact of the 25,000 arbitrary job cuts imposed by the government over the last six years.

Instead of disgraceful and misleading attacks on low paid staff the focus should instead be on the real waste.

For example the billions of pounds wasted in the MoD equipment programme every year, on the myriad failed privatisation projects and on the employment of thousands on non-deployable military personnel. This is the real scandal in MoD.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Serwotka
PCS general secretary

15 Comments CherryPie on Nov 14th 2009

15 Responses to “Media Myths About Civil & Public Services – MoD Bonuses”

  1. Sadly how many of the lazy hacks or morons who read the article will read or even care what Mark Serwotka says? As far as those idiots are concerned, civil servants are lazy parastites and I doubt little will ever change their view.

    As far as I am concerned Serwotka is easily the best leader we have had in my 24 years of PCS (aks PTC, aka NUCPS, aka SCPS) membership

    • CherryPie says:

      They have been fed too many lies by the media, watched too many soaps and reality shows so they no longer know what is real and what is fictional!

      Don’t forget to vote for Mark, the election for the General Secretary takes place this month and the person standing against him is bad news for us.

  2. jameshigham says:

    Thoughtfully written, thoughtfully read.

  3. ubermouth says:

    Well done highlighting this travesty, Cherie.

    It infuriating me just reading this deliberate misrepresentation of the MoD by the media.

  4. No fear of me voting for anyone else Cherie!

  5. jpt says:

    The press don’t give a bugger for the truth and by now they will have moved on to some other poor sods.

  6. Phidelm says:

    If you ignore them (journos), they go away (usually because fired due to lack of readership) … Not all of them are ‘morons’, though ;-) .

  7. Excellent post, Cherie.

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