Will statutory authorities’ staff get pay rises?
Regarding the cost-of-living pay increase for civil servants (see Civil servants to get 5% cost of living hike), would you find out if employees of statutory authorities will also be getting raises?
Auntie’s answer: The short answer is the increase is not automatic for statutory authorities and government companies (SAGCs), but that does not necessarily mean those employees won’t get raises. I received clarification on this issue from the Office of the Deputy Governor, who is the head of the civil service.
Noting that the “remuneration of employees within the civil service and SAGCs have not always been linked”, Acting Deputy Governor Gloria McField-Nixon added that not all SAGCs would have adopted the salary cut that was applied to the civil service between 2010 and 2015.
“Further, while the civil service had lagged a decade behind in addressing inflation, some SAGCs have regularly awarded cost-of-living adjustments to keep pace with inflation,” she said. “As there is not a uniform position across the public authorities, the Cabinet has agreed to consider SAGC applications for cost-of-living adjustments on a case-by-case basis.” This is set out in Section 48 of the Public Authorities Law covering salary increases.
For an authority to make such an application, first it will have to identify the period of inflation being addressed, and Ms McField-Nixon pointed out that “within the civil service it was a decade of inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index from 2008 to 2018”.
The other requirement is that if the increase is approved it must be affordable. The acting deputy governor explained that within the civil service this latest cost-of-living increase “is expected to be achieved through savings within the existing collective HR budget for core government”.
The law mentioned in this column can be found on the CNS Library
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Category: Ask Auntie, Civil Service Questions
Why the civil servants got 5 % Cost of living raise ant the Govt. Pensioners got only 1.9 % cost of living raise, remember we got to eat, etc, etc, etc too.
Will the poor staff of Cayman Airways (C I Govt company) this COL iincrease (other than the pilots who have negotiated there own salaries and increases constantly)?