UUP MLAs meet with senior civil servants over pay dispute

A delegation of Ulster Unionist MLAs has met with government officials to discuss the current Civil Service pay dispute.

Billy Armstrong, Ken Robinson and Rev Dr Robert Coulter said they raised their concerns about the impact the civil service pay dispute was having on staff, those in receipt of benefits, and farmers whose concern on the movement of livestock.

The meeting, with senior officials from the Department of Finance and Personnel, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Social Development, also raised concerns such as problems with pension and disability payments, problems associated with the payment of road fund licences and late payments by DARD.

In a statement the delegation said: "We expressed concern that the dispute was taking so long to resolve and pressed the civil service representatives on why no breakthroughs in negotiation had yet been achieved.

"While the employers are holding fast to the 3.67 percent Treasury limit and insisting that a higher settlement would be based on agreed reforms, we insisted there is room for manoeuvre and they could revisit the situation and go back over their figures again."

Minister for Finance and Personnel Ian Pearson recently reaffirmed a tough stance over the pay dispute.

He said the pay award, which is now being paid to staff, was higher than the majority of increases in the private sector this year and higher than the pattern of pay increases in Whitehall Departments.

However, the General Secretary of Civil Service workers union, NIPSA, John Corey said that while workers regretted the disruption to public services they had been left with no alternative.

"The fact remains that civil service staff in Northern Ireland have been denied any ‘cost of living’ increase in their rates of pay from April 2003 and the dispute will not be resolved until that fundamental issue is addressed," he said.

Both sides have agreed to keep in touch on the issue.

(MB)