3,200 Northern Ireland civil servants still waiting for pay increase

The Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) employs more than 23,000 permanent staff and this is complemented by the use of workers hired from recruitment agencies.

These agencies carry out work which cannot be completed by permanent staff, for reasons such as sick leave, being assigned to other projects or contractual issues.

In October 2020, Finance Minister Conor Murphy announced that NICS agency workers would receive parity of pay with permanent staff, and also annual leave. Mr Murphy's department handles personnel issues for the NICS.

Pay scales reflecting the 2020 and 2021 NICS pay awards were published on June 4 last year, however it has now emerged that thousands of agency workers are yet to receive these pay increases.

Mr Murphy said it is the responsibility of the Civil Service’s contracted recruitment agencies to pay their employees the appropriate rates of pay and manage any pay adjustments or claims for back pay during the term of their contract.

"Work is ongoing to finalise back-pay calculations for the majority of recruitment agency workers," he said.

"There are 3,219 recruitment agency workers due back pay following the 2020 NICS pay award and 2,358 as the result of the 2021 NICS pay award. It is anticipated that the majority of these will be paid by the end of February.

"NICSHR officials in my department continue to support the recruitment agencies to complete calculations of back pay due to their employees."

People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll said: "The fact that in the middle of a cost of living crisis there are thousands of civil service agency workers still awaiting back pay two years on shines a further light on how the practice of overreliance on agency staff is a failed policy that should come to an end.”

Mr Carroll urged Mr Murphy to take responsibility for sorting out the situation, and ensuring workers get their cash.

He added: "Agency staff have been left without financial security, proper wages and full rights for too long — the Minister needs to right that wrong as a matter of urgency."

A report published last summer found that 9.8 days were lost per staff member on average in the previous financial year — down from 12.9 days in the previous year.

The absence level for 2020/2021 was the lowest absence level recorded for over 22 years.

The 9.8 days lost per staff year represented 4.4% of the available working days in 2020/2021.