 Public sector pay has proved contentious |
David Cameron says he does not back a freeze on all public sector pay - but says it cannot be "independent" of pay restraint in the private sector. The Tory leader told the BBC it was "right" to leave pay levels to the independent pay review bodies but they would be "much tighter" in future. Audit Commission boss Steve Bundred has said all public sector pay should be frozen to rebalance public finances. TUC chief Brendan Barber said an across the board freeze was not realistic. On Sunday Mr Bundred told the Observer politicians had to admit that "severe pay restraint" was one of many measures needed to rebalance the public finances - particularly if pay in the private sector was falling. 'Much tighter' "At a time when inflation is likely to be between 2% and 3%, a pain-free way of cutting public spending would be to freeze public-sector pay, or at least impose severe pay restraint," he said. Asked whether he supported a freeze, Mr Cameron said: "I don't think that is the way we do pay in this country. "The way we do pay in this country in the public sector, rightly, is we have independent pay review bodies."  |  The prospect of a real living standards being cut for public service workers will obviously provoke a very strong reaction |
Those bodies already took account of pay in the private sector - because they had to consider how to recruit and retain public sector staff, he said. "Everybody knows public sector pay is going to have a much tighter than it has in the past. Here we are in 2009, we don't know exactly what inflation will be in the future so I don't think it's the right time to make this decision." In his article Mr Bundred said public sector workers had "done well" in the past 10 years and would "tolerate" modest reductions. But Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, told the BBC millions of public sector workers had seen "real cuts" in pay over the last three years. < | 
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