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Pay Policy for the Civil Service
4.
After the introduction of equal pay for women in 1969, Government in 1971 constituted a Salaries Commission which recommended radical changes in Government's whole pay structure. The Commission drew up Class Scales on a Master Pay Scale which took account of the effects of equal pay and which also took account of relativities. They recommended, however, that for the future relativities should be given consideration only for grades within the same Class.
5.
The table you have provided to illustrate internal relativity between female officers in the grades of Stenographer/SAT, Personal Secretary, Clerical Officer and Clerical Assistant is incorrect in some of its figures and misleading in that the pay for the job of Clerical Officer II and Clerical Assistant was that of the male scales which in 1965 were $1045 and $440 respectively. The relativity of Stenographer to Personal Secretary has improved marginally from 1965 to 1976 by 0.9%; that of Stenographer to Clerical Officer II (male scale, 1.e. pay for the job) by 4%.
6.
Personal Secretaries not only have wider responsibilities in their jobs than Stenographers/SATs but work for officers ranked higher than those who have the services of a Stenographer/SAT. As you know it is not generally Government's policy to provide a full secretarial service for officers below the rank of Divisional Head or departmental equivalent.
7.
Government introduced its Pensionability for Married Women scheme in 1972 and Half Pay Maternity Leave Scheme in 1973 after full consultation and agreement with the Staff Side of the Senior Civil Service Council.
8.
The Salaries Commission in recommending scales for the Secretarial Class noted in paragraph 161 of the Commission's Report that it had taken into account the implications of equal pay for women. It would therefore be inappropriate for Government to reopen issues on equal pay pre-dating 1971. The Salaries Commission also recommended that movements in pay, once the Class Scales had been introduced, should be regulated by Government's internal
machinery i.e. the Pay Investigation Unit, and this recommendation has been followed.
9.
The PIU was constituted in 1968 as an independent investigatory body based on the United Kingdom Pay Research Unit, information from which is used in determining UK
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