The Programme for Prosperity and Fairness provides for the establishment of a public service benchmarking body to undertake a fundamental examination of the pay of public service employees vis-à-vis the private sector. Under the programme this body has to be established within three months of the commencement of the agreement, that is by 31 December 2000 and produce its report and recommendations by the end of 2002, to allow the parties to discuss the implementation of its recommendations in the context of any successor to the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness. However, in view of the complexity of the task and the need to allow time for its findings to be discussed, my Department is working with the public service unions to seek to establish it early, before the autumn, and to ask it to report by autumn 2002.
The benchmarking exercise will cover pay and jobs in the public service and across the economy. It will examine and compare job content, duties and responsibilities in both sectors. The examination will also be based on indepth and comprehensive research, examination and analysis of private sector pay, across a range of employment-types and sectors, and will take account of the way reward systems are structured in the private sector. Any increases which might emerge from the exercise will not take effect during the period of this agreement.