HARD-pressed families struggling to make ends meet will find pay rises of almost four per cent at the top end of the civil service “difficult to stomach”.
The comments by the Taypayers' Alliance came as the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) revealed salary details of civil servants in the north last year with the vast majority of senior employees enjoying pay increases of up to 3.9 per cent.
The overall average civil service salary is £24,728, which a bulletin from the NISRA says has remained unchanged from 2014.
Across the entire service however, 53 per cent of staff saw a salary increase in the last year, but with variations between staff grades. Some grades saw little change, while others saw all staff at their level get an increase.
However, at the senior level, 92 percent of staff got a pay rise, with 80 percent getting a raise of between two per cent and 3.9 per cent.
Those in the top 10 per cent of civil service positions can earn anything above £39,675.
The chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, John O’Connell, said the figures “would certainly raise eyebrows”.
“At a time when hard-pressed families are struggling with ever-rising tax bills and many colleagues across the public sector have seen pay freeze or worse, a raise for such an overwhelming majority of senior civil servants will be difficult to stomach.
“The people at senior level should not be seen to be protecting themselves against the very savings they are having to make in the case of junior colleagues.”
In September, it was announced that 280 new civil service jobs were being created in Northern Ireland to help the Department of Work and Pensions in Britain deal with credit and maintenance payments.
The posts were announced five months after a recruitment and promotion freeze lasting more than a year in the civil service was lifted.
