CIVIL servants in the north are seeing their average earnings rise by nearly three times that of the private sector, according to new statistics from Nisra.
Its overview of pay statistics for the NI Civil Service reveal that the average basic pay of staff, at £28,422, is a 5.25 per cent increase on the equivalent figure for 2020, whereas the private sector equivalent is 1.8 per cent.
The report also says the median pay of staff at AO grade in Northern Ireland is higher than that of civil servants at the equivalent level in England, Scotland and Wales.
And it also highlights that Protestants are, on average, earning 7.4 per cent more than their Catholic counterparts.
The figures suggest the public-private sector pay gap is closing, because due to the effects of the Covid pandemic companies have been forced to revise their expected pay rises.
Public sector pay was frozen from 2011-13 and then capped at a 1 per cent annual increase until 2018.
As a result, the difference between public and private-sector pay has narrowed since 2011, such that in 2019-20, there was no gap.
But last year the gap increased somewhat, suggesting that the public sector had a better year than the private sector.
Nisra says the reason for the overall increase in median pay across the Civil Service is that there has been a shift in the overall grade profile.
It says basic pay of £23,007 would put someone in the bottom 10 per cent of NICS staff, whereas basic pay of £42,217 would put someone in the top 10 per cent of NICS staff.
The majority (99 per cent) of staff received an increase in pay last year, though it varied across the grades.
For example, 72 per cent of 'industrial 2' staff received a rise of between 4 per cent and 5.9 per cent but at senior grade level, 91 per cent received pay increases of between 2 per cent and 3.9 per cent.
The report again highlighted a gender gap in NICS pay (females are generally paid an average 7.4 per cent less than men).
And there remains a gap between Protestant and Catholic pay in the NICS, where the median pay for Catholic staff is 7.4 per cent lower than that of Protestants, which Nisra says arises from a range of factors including differing proportions of staff in lower paid grades.
