Remuneration review for the 2021/22 financial year

This year’s remuneration review has been subject to a few complexities that have taken us some time to work through. Thanks to everyone for your patience.

We are now able to confirm that decisions have been made on how to apply the 2021 remuneration review. A summary of this is below, and full information is available on the Portal.

This year we are continuing to operate under government expectations that require us to demonstrate ‘pay restraint’ in our annual review and collective bargaining processes. The government expectations have been published and are publicly available here(external link).

Annual market rate alignment

Based on the advice from the Public Service Commission regarding visible pay restraint across the public service, we are adopting a targeted approach to the annual market rate alignment which focuses only on increasing the pay grades of lower paid positions.

• Employees in positions that are at job grades 13 and below: 2% increase to market pay rates (meaning the 100% point in the pay band, increases by 2%).
• Employees in positions that are at job grades 14-16 inclusive: 1.5% increase to market pay rates (meaning the 100% point in the pay band, increases by 1.5%).
• Employees in positions that are at job grades 17-18 inclusive: 1% increase to market pay rates (meaning the 100% point in the pay band, increases by 1%).
• No market rate pay increases in positions at job grades 19 and above.

We are aiming for payments to be made by the end of February 2022, backdated to 1 July 2021.

Step-based progression on anniversary

• For people below the 100% pay step within their pay band, normal single step pay progression will apply. To progress from one step to another, a rating of no less than ‘Achieves Requirements’ is required in the annual progression and performance review.
• For people in roles graded 11 and 12, single step pay progression will extend up to 105% of their pay band – so two additional pay progression steps now exist in those pay bands.
• For people whose salary is between 100%-110% of their pay band, a single additional pay increase of 2.5% is available for those achieving ‘Exceeds Requirements’ or ‘Significantly Exceeds Requirements’ performance ratings, where this is approved by their DCE. This replaces the usual policy provision of a 2.5% pay increase for an ‘Exceeds Requirements’ rating and 3.5% pay increase for a ‘Significantly Exceeds Requirements’ rating.

We are aiming for all overdue step-based pay increases to be paid, with necessary backdating, by the end of February 2022.

Employees employed on collective agreements

All three collective agreements have been subject to bargaining during this year’s remuneration review process. This meant that Fire and Emergency provided proposals for the 2021 remuneration review to each union, in the context of bargaining, before any decisions were made on any outcomes.

• The remuneration review outcomes for PSA and FECA will apply, subject to ratification of their collective agreements.
• These outcomes will not apply to employees employed on the PFU collective agreement because agreement has not been reached with PFU on remuneration review outcomes and PFU bargaining continues.  We have agreed with the PFU that market rates for Firefighter/Officer and Comcen positions will not be increased ahead of PFU bargaining being concluded.

We will not yet be applying market rate increases to the small number of employees on individual employment agreements in roles within the Comcen or Firefighter and Officer positions, until after PFU bargaining has concluded. At that time, we will review pay rates for these positions, for those on individual employment agreements.

Full information on the remuneration for the 2021/22 financial year is available on the Portal.