Guidance

Practitioner guidance on the 2024 - 25 Senior Civil Service Pay Framework (HTML)

Published 30 July 2024

Purpose of this guidance

1. This guidance sets out the Senior Civil Service (SCS) pay framework and award for 2024-25.

2. It is a cornerstone of the centrally managed approach to the SCS. Unlike pay for delegated grades, SCS pay is set centrally. SCS pay is determined on an annual cycle through the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB), an advisory independent pay review body.

3. This follows the Government’s acceptance of the SSRB’s Forty-Sixth Report and its recommendations for 2024-25.

Executive summary

4. Departments should follow this guidance in making awards this year to ensure consistent application across the SCS in line with the SSRB’s recommendations.

5. This year, the SSRB has recommended:

• An across-the-board increase for all SCS of 5 per cent from 1 April 2024.
• Setting the following pay ranges from 1 April 2024, based on increases to the minima of £1,000 for SCS Pay Bands 1-3; and retaining the existing maxima:
  • SCS pay band 1: £76,000 to £117,800.
  • SCS pay band 2: £98,000 to £162,500.
  • SCS pay band 3: £128,000 to £208,100.

6. The Government has accepted in full a 5 per cent across-the-board increase for the SCS. The Government has also accepted in full the increase to minima. Departments should therefore implement the award in line with the SSRB’s recommendations, as set out in the rest of this guidance.

7. If, exceptionally, departments wish to consider any departure from this approach, this must be discussed and agreed in advance with the SCS Reward team in Civil Service Pay, Policy and Pensions.

Revised SCS pay ranges with effect from 1 April 2024

8. Departments must implement the new pay range minima:

Pay Band	Minimum (£)	Maximum (£)
1	£76,000	£117,800
1A*	£76,000	£128,900
2	£98,000	£162,500
3	£128,000	£208,100

(*)See paragraphs 34-35

Consolidated base pay awards

9. Departments must give all eligible^{[footnote 1]} members of the SCS a consolidated pay increase of 5 per cent of their base pay from 1 April 2024.

10. In accordance with the SSRB’s recommendations this year, the consolidated increase of 5 per cent must be applied after the pay of SCS members has been uplifted to the revised pay band minimum.

11. Should the consolidated pay increase of 5 per cent exceed the pay range maximum, the excess of the award above the pay range maximum should be paid as a one-off, non-consolidated, non-pensionable lump sum payment.

12. Consolidated pay awards must not be paid to any member of the SCS who is subject to formal poor performance procedures and who is paid above the minimum. Where such individuals are paid below the new minimum, their pay should be uplifted to the minimum of the pay range if their performance improves to an acceptable level.

13. Awards must be backdated to the start of the SCS pay year i.e. 1 April 2024.

14. As usual in the next round of evidence, we will be asking departments for information on how the pay award has been implemented in line with this guidance. We will be formally commissioning this information in the Autumn. The SSRB has consistently looked closely at the evidence on how the awards have been made by departments against the advice set out in its Report and recommendations and we expect that they will continue to do so.

Non-consolidated performance related pay 

15. Funding for non-consolidated performance related pay (NCPRP) is capped at 3.3 percent of the SCS pay bill. Individual in-year awards must not exceed £5,000 and the total value of awards for any one individual in the 2024/25 performance year must not exceed £17,500 without prior approval from the Chief Secretary to the Secretary.

16. Departments must pay an end-of-year NCPRP award to those rated ‘Exceeding’ as part of their performance management processes. In addition, departments are strongly advised to consider how they recognise those rated as ‘High Performing’ with some level of end-of-year NCPRP award.

Further information on the SCS pay and performance management framework

Differentiating performance in 2023/24

17. Departments should already have assigned individuals to one of the four performance groups:

Performance Group
Exceeding
High Performing
Achieving
Partially Met

18. For the 2023/24 performance year, the following principles apply for NCPRP:

• An element of the reward system must be tied to long term performance.
• The likelihood of reward allocation should not be linked to an individual’s grade.
• Members of the SCS subject to formal poor performance measures are not eligible for an additional non-consolidated performance related award.
• The total value of awards for a single performance year should not exceed £17,500 unless the approval from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is sought.
• Funding for all awards continues to be capped at 3.3 percent of SCS pay bill. This funding cannot be carried over to increase the pot for future performance years or used for any other purposes.
• The maximum individual in year award is £5,000. An individual can receive more than one award.
• Departments must be transparent regarding their reward systems and processes.

19. Non-consolidated performance awards are subject to transparency requirements, with spend published as part of the current annual aggregated disclosure by departments.

Differentiating performance in 2024/25

20. For the 2024/25 performance year, there are no changes planned to the operation of NCPRP for the SCS.

21. Departments should continue to rate around 5 percent of their overall SCS as ‘Partially Met’ at the end of year assessment process.

22. The principles for NCPRP set out in paragraph 18 will continue to apply. All those in the ‘Exceeding’ performance group must be awarded with a non-consolidated performance-related bonus, but departments have flexibility on whether to pay NCPRP to those in the High Performing performance group. Departments also have discretion to decide how any award is distributed between these boxes, if they do decide to pay a NCPRP to those in the High Performing performance group. NCPRP must not be paid to those in the Achieved or Partially Met performance group. An important factor will be the number of individuals in that performance group and the impact on the value of awards.

23. The current SCS Performance Management guidance and Managing Poor Performance guidance

Role of Pay Committees

24. Departments’ SCS Pay Committees play an important role in overseeing and directing the operation of SCS pay and performance frameworks. Each department’s Executive Committee often performs this role although departments are free to operate alternative approaches provided the Accounting Officer remains responsible overall. It is for Pay Committees, in light of line managers’ pay recommendations, to:

a. make and communicate judgements about individuals’ performance and delivery, their competence, job challenge and sustained performance over time.  Pay committees should take account of the salary position in the pay range and recent pay history as well as any market intelligence on professional or specialist skills and relativities across the Department and the wider SCS;

b. monitor results to ensure compliance with diversity legislation and take any appropriate action; and

c. oversee the distribution of performance groups to ensure that they meet the requirements of your Departmental SCS pay strategy and the Cabinet Office guidance on performance management for the SCS.

Corporate recognition scheme

25. The centrally managed Corporate Recognition Scheme remains under review.  In the meantime, departments may operate their own similar schemes. As with the centrally managed scheme, awards should be capped at £1,000 within a cost limit of 0.1 per cent of the SCS pay bill and approved by the Accounting Officer.

Pivotal Role Allowance

26. Pivotal Role Allowance (PRA) is a well established approach, available to help departments retain and motivate experienced members of the SCS in highly specialised roles and those delivering the riskiest major projects across government and other priorities. The current guidance and pro-forma are set out in Annex A. Departments are encouraged to use PRAs to address flight risk and where outcomes can be easily measured.

Other allowances

27. Departments must consult the Cabinet Office before they implement any changes to any other permissible allowances e.g. Private Secretary allowance.

Other SCS pay flexibilities

28. The limited and exceptional flexibilities introduced previously have been retained for 2024/2025 and can be found at Annex B:

a. converting non-consolidated funding into consolidated pay; and

b. the timing of NCPRP awards for top performers

Pay controls

29. The Treasury Senior Pay Control is currently set at £150,000 and above:

Guidance for approval of senior pay (PDF, 192KB

30. Departments must secure the approval of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury (CST) for any remuneration at or above £150,000, as defined in the guidance, before advertising. Please ensure that you allow at least three weeks for approval. As indicated in paragraph 18 any performance pay arrangements with an annual value of more than £17,500 require the approval of the CST. You should aggregate in-year and end-year payments for the same performance year to determine whether the control threshold is triggered.

31. Departments must seek Cabinet Office approval where they propose to pay a salary for an SCS1 member of staff that is above the maximum of the SCS1 pay range.

32. The current pay controls are set out in Annex C.

Non-standard terms

33. Please discuss in advance with the Cabinet Office any proposals to offer non-standard terms that may raise issues of propriety and controversy (e.g. benefits in kind).

Pay Band 1A

34. Long standing policy is that departments must not recruit into Pay Band 1A, since there is enough flexibility in the SCS pay system to recruit into Pay Bands 1 and 2. While departments should not recruit into Pay Band 1A, existing staff are unaffected and departments will be able to make pay awards in the same way as for other SCS staff.

35. Departments are asked to ensure that SCS are correctly recorded as 1As when returns are made to the Cabinet Office Analysis and Insight team as part of the annual collection exercise for the SCS database.

Pay on appointment/promotion

36. Departments should apply the following SCS pay policies consistently for SCS staff:

• That no increase is given for moves on level transfer; and
• On promotion, SCS receive no more than 10% increase or the minimum of the new grade.

37. An exception process is available in cases where internal candidates are moving to roles with significantly greater scale or responsibility so that increases to be considered, with the agreement of the Permanent Secretary and the relevant Head of Profession. More detail on the process is set out in Annex D.

38. Cabinet Office will closely monitor use of this flexibility as part of the SSRB evidence gathering process, so please ensure that all exceptions are carried out against these criteria and recorded in the business case pro-forma provided.

39. All Pay Band 3 business cases need approval by the Directors General Remuneration Committee and should be sent to the Civil Service Reward team.

Exit information

40. Exit data is vitally important in understanding why senior staff leave the Civil Service. The Cabinet Office (Civil Service Reward team) commissions this data four times a year.

41. HR Directors are personally accountable for ensuring exit interviews are properly conducted and timely returns made to the Cabinet Office and the appropriate forms are submitted. Exit interviews should be undertaken by a HR Director within the department. If this is not possible, HR Directors may choose to nominate another suitable colleague within a department’s HR function.

Senior executives in NDPBs

42. Senior NDPB executives are not members of the SCS and not in scope of SSRB’s remit. Nevertheless, they have an important leadership role in following public sector pay policy. Any annual pay increase or decision to award performance-related pay to such staff should be considered alongside and according to the same general principles that apply to SCS in the rest of the organisation. Sponsor departments are accountable for enforcing this.

Statutory Office Holders

43. From 1 April 2024, the salaries of statutory office holders whose pay is directly linked to movements in the SCS pay bands will increase by 5 per cent.

Cabinet Office support

44. For any outstanding queries on SCS pay, SCS performance management, exit interview information and SCS Corporate Recognition Scheme, please contact the SCS Reward team in Civil Service Pay, Policy and Pensions.

Annex A - Guide on control process for pivotal role allowance

Background

• The purpose of Pivotal Role Allowance is to retain experienced members of the SCS in highly specialised roles and those delivering the riskiest major projects across government and other priorities.
• The non-consolidated allowance is removable and non-pensionable and is strictly controlled within a notional central pot set at 0.5% of the overall SCS pay bill.
• The allowance relates to the role, not the individual. The allowance should be removed when the recipient leaves the role or the role is no longer business critical to the organisation. This ensures that funds are recycled back into the central notional pot for future cases.
• All cases require central approval of a Permanent Secretary Sub-Group, currently comprising the Civil Service Chief Operating Officer and the Permanent Secretary of the Treasury. For any case where the annual value of the PRA exceeds £15,000, the approval of a Cabinet Office minister and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is also required.

Qualifying criteria

• Any proposal to pay the allowance must meet four qualifying criteria:
  • The role is critical to delivering the strategic goals of the organisation.
  • There will be a disproportionately large impact on the business if left unfilled.
  • The role requires specific skills that are not easily available in the Civil Service.
  • There is a genuine flight risk.

Key conditions

• PRA is a retention tool to retain skills and experience in a role. It is not an attraction measure or incentive for new staff.
• The flight risk must be demonstrated (evidence that the incumbent is looking for a new role or being headhunted etc).
• PRAs must be linked to clearly defined and easily understood outcomes, supported by specific, measurable and meaningful milestones. These must be set out in the business case.
• Payment should be in instalments and tied explicitly to achievement of milestones that will support outcomes. Equal payments paid with salary will not normally be agreed.
• Where appropriate, the level of instalments should be backloaded to incentivise recipients to remain in post.
• The Accounting Officer is responsible for assessing and authorising payment.
• For specialist roles, cross-government Heads of Professions (HoPs) should be consulted first. The role of the HoP in this process is to provide both technical and profession specific insights on the role in terms of its responsibilities, scope and technical capabilities; which is considered alongside the flight risk and the business impact of the incumbent leaving.
• The payment level is not prescribed, but should be proportionate to timescales. For illustrative purposes: 24 months - up to £20,000 in total; 18 months - up to £15,000; 12 months - up to £10,000; 6 months - up to £5,000. This is a guide only and the criticality of the role, scarcity of skills and flight risk will be considered for cases proposing to exceed these indicative rates.
• In certain cases, for example where the level of the payment is high and/or the timescale is unusually short, there may be a greater reporting requirement to the Cabinet Office.

Monitoring

• Accounting Officers must be able to properly measure the milestones that are set alongside the award.
• Departments must review the PRA every six months to ensure that the role remains business critical to the organisation and to ensure that outcomes and milestones are up to date.

Process

• The approval process operates as follows:
  • Department identifies a role that meets all four eligibility criteria and develops a business case using the standard pro-forma below.
  • Department gains approval of the Accounting Officer/the Permanent Secretary and Minister for the proposed allowance. For specialist skills, the cross-government Heads of Professions should be consulted (particularly project management, commercial, digital and finance roles).
  • Department formally submits their case to the Government People Group (Cabinet Office).
  • GPG puts the case to a Sub-Group of the Civil Service Board for approval. This currently comprises the Civil Service Chief Operating Officer and the Treasury Permanent Secretary.
  • For any case where the annual value of the PRA exceeds £15,000, the approval of a Cabinet Office minister and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is also required.
  • GPG informs the department of the decision.

Pro-Forma for application for pivotal role allowance

Title of role
Employing department
Brief Description of the role.
Profession of role
Is this a designated SRO role e.g. leading a project in the government major projects portfolio? If yes, please name the project
Please describe how each of the eligibility criterion has been met	How the role is critical to delivering the strategic goals of the organisation
	The impact on the business if the role is left unfilled.
	The specific skills for this role that are not easily available in the Civil Service.
	The flight risk for this role (evidence that the incumbent is looking for a new role or being headhunted etc).
Level of allowance being sought and supporting justification, including market evidence
Please provide details of the remuneration package currently received by the incumbent (including base salary, performance pay opportunity and any other benefits/allowances)
Please define clearly the outcome this PRA is intended to achieve.
Please set out each instalment of the PRA against each milestone that must be achieved.
Please describe how you will monitor performance against the outcomes/milestones and who will be accountable for this.
Number of SCS in the department already in receipt of a Pivotal Role Allowance
For specialist roles, please confirm that the cross- government Head of Profession is supporting
Name of Accounting Officer supporting this application
Name of Permanent Secretary supporting this application
View of Departmental Minister
Name and post of person submitting this application
Contact telephone and email
Date of application

Annex B - Additional SCS pay flexibilities

Converting non-consolidated funding into consolidated pay

The Cabinet Office and HM Treasury will consider, on an exceptional basis, requests from departments for the flexibility to address specific recruitment and retention pressures and other pay anomalies by re-allocating some limited funding within their overall SCS paybill.

Departments wishing to convert part of their non-consolidated pot to address recruitment and retention pressures are required to submit a business case to the Cabinet Office. This should meet all three of the following eligibility criteria:

• The roles should be business critical.
• Current pay should be below the median for the whole SCS population at the relevant pay band.
• Subject to performance of individuals.

The flexibility is also available to address equal pay liabilities where these can be fully evidenced and supported by legal advice.

Conversion is limited to a maximum of 0.5% of the 3.3% performance pay pot available. Any agreed conversion permanently reduces the NCPRP pot. Departments must be satisfied that the proposed reduction in the pot will not jeopardise the operation and effectiveness of their performance-related pay arrangements.

HM Treasury will be consulted on all cases and will want to consider the relative pay position of applicant departments compared to other departments. But that does not rule out higher paying departments if the eligibility criteria are met.

Departments should support their business case with the following information and data:

• Details of the recruitment or retention pressure to be addressed and details of the business critical area(s) involved.
• The number and nature of posts involved; existing and proposed pay rates and the level of adjustments involved; the proposed reduction in the PRP pot; and the cost to the consolidated pay bill including on-costs (employer pension contributions and ERNICS).
• The amount of the existing NCPRP pot calculated as a percentage of current SCS paybill.
• Demonstrate how the pay award is already being targeted to reflect position in pay range and performance, and to address any other anomalies.

The timing of NCPRP awards for top performers

To strengthen the link between key achievement and reward departments are able to stage NCPRP awards to top performers so that some payments can be made at the mid-year point or held over to other points to be determined. This is particularly relevant to project work with key milestones. This will be for departments to manage within the existing framework for NCPRP. If you would like to discuss how this flexibility might operate within your department, please contact the Cabinet Office.

Annex C - Salary controls for SCS

Level	Approval by Department (All appointments above former CO reference points to be signed-off by Accounting Officer)	Approval by Cabinet Office (All requests for approval to be made before hiring process commences)	Approval by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury (All requests for approval to be made before hiring process commences)
Deputy Director Pay band 1	Salary up to £117,800pa (salaries above £90,000 to be approved by Accounting Officer)	Salary above £117,800pa - £149,999	All posts with a package worth £150,000 or more as defined in the Treasury guidance
Director Pay band 2	Salary up to £149,999pa (salaries above £120,000 to be approved by Accounting Officer)	See next column	All posts with a package worth £150,000 or more as defined in the Treasury guidance
Director General Pay band 3	Salary up to £149,999pa (salaries above £140,000 to be approved by Accounting Officer)	See next column	All posts with a package worth £150,000 or more as defined in the Treasury guidance
Permanent Secretary	Permanent Secretary pay tiers (currently ranging from £152,000 to £200,000) are set centrally, based on the weight and complexity of the role. The Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service decides which tier each role sits in. CST signs off all cases that exceed the maximum of the overall Permanent Secretary pay range.		All posts with a package worth £150,000 or more as defined in the Treasury guidance

Annex D - SCS Pay - Exceptions Process Guidance

Policy

Since 2018/19, the following rules for movement into and around the SCS have been in place:

• No pay increases for moves within the SCS on level transfer; and
• On promotion to the SCS or to a higher SCS grade, SCS will receive no more than a 10% salary increase or the minimum of the new grade.

The aims are to:

• Tackle inconsistency of current approaches, which result in unequal outcomes for those moving into and around the SCS;
• Balance incentives for both breadth and depth of experience, encouraging SCS to build capability by remaining in post for longer; and
• Make more efficient use of existing funding, releasing savings to fund structural reform.

An exceptions process exists to enable flexibility in cases where internal candidates move to roles with greater scale or responsibility. This will require agreement from the Permanent Secretary and relevant Head of Profession and evidence should be given, including against both of the following criteria:

• Sustained high performance, increased effectiveness, deepened capability and expertise; and
• That the individual is relatively low in the pay range and/or have benefited less or not at all from the rise in the minima.

Departments must also consider the equality impact of any decisions made on exceptions, as well as any precedents they might be setting.

There is no limit number of exceptions that can be approved, but Cabinet Office will collate the number of exceptions made each year to feed in to Senior Salary Review Body evidence. Although there is no centrally imposed limit on the number of exceptions, it is expected that they will make up only a small minority of cases.

Process:

• Resourcing leads and hiring managers identify that an exception is likely to be required and engage with the departmental HR Director and Head of Profession at the earliest opportunity.
• Resourcing leads and hiring managers develop a business case using the standard pro-forma below for the exception which:

a. Demonstrates efforts to appoint in line with standard rules;

b. Outlines costs and affordability; and

c. Justifies the exception against central criteria.

• Once any departmental governance processes have been followed, the case should be submitted to the cross Civil Service Head of Profession for sign-off and any additional comments or endorsement.
• For Directors and Deputy Directors, the case should be finally submitted to the departmental Permanent Secretary (or equivalent).
• All Director General (pay band 3) business cases need approval by a Directors General Remuneration Committee and should be sent to the Civil Service Reward team.
• Once appointment has been finalised, the business case and agreed salary should be submitted to the Civil Service Reward team. This is to enable monitoring of the application of the process from the Cabinet Office.

Frequently Asked Questions:

• Who are the Heads of Professions (HoP)?

You should initially contact your departmental heads of professions, who will be able to refer you to the cross-government Head of Profession. If you have any issues, then please contact: hrpolicy.gpg@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.

• Often an SCS role can overlap with more than one profession - which Head of Profession should sign off on an exception?

The vacancy holder should make a decision as to whether the role has a clear anchor in one profession, and subsequently that Head of Profession will be approached for approval alongside the Permanent Secretary. However, if there isn’t a clear anchor, more than one Head of Profession may be consulted for approval and joint agreement should be sought.

• In some cases the Head of Profession is also the Permanent Secretary - who should be the second signatory in this case?

In this instance, we would expect the Permanent Secretary to suggest an appropriate and independent alternative, to provide the dual-key approval.

• Some Heads of Profession have significantly larger SCS workforces without corresponding support teams. How will we be able to process exceptions?

Exceptions should be very few in number and should therefore not generate too much work. When defining their exceptions criteria Head of Profession should consider whether departmental heads of profession can provide initial sign-off to help with the administration of the process.

• What if an exception is sought for a cross Civil Service Head of Profession role?

In this instance, Cat Little, Civil Service Chief Operating Officer, should be approached for approval alongside the relevant Permanent Secretary.

• How do we know what has been delegated to department HoP and what hasn’t?

By its nature the exceptions process, and therefore the involvement of the HoP in reward decisions should be rare. However, as with all SCS recruitment, it is advised that you have early engagement with your departmental HoPs, before engaging in the recruitment process in order to ensure activity aligns to wider capability development plans. In the event that exceptional pay flexibility is required the departmental HoPs will be able to advise on the arrangements that have been agreed with the cross- government HoPs.

• What happens when disagreement occurs?

The exception process is designed to be a mutually agreed decision between the HoP and the Permanent Secretary/Accounting Officer for the benefit of the department.

We would anticipate that there may be a healthy level of challenge to decisions, to ensure that it is in line with the business needs of the departments and that all decisions are sufficiently robust to stand up to scrutiny. If disagreements do arise, the Permanent Secretary/Accounting Officer would make the final decision, but parties should try to reach agreement, to avoid the situation occurring.

If the case is a role at Director General level, approval is sought from the HoPs and the Permanent Secretary, then a Directors General RemCo final sign off.

• Should the HoP be advising based on market rates of pay for these roles?

The exception process exists to enable flexibility in cases where internal candidates move to roles with greater scale or responsibility. Therefore, market rates for these roles is less likely to be a determining factor although HoPs are expected to have some insight into market pressures on their profession as part of the broader design of SCS pay going forward.

The role of the HoP in this process is to provide both technical and profession specific insights on the role in terms of its responsibilities, scope and technical capabilities; which is considered alongside the individual’s capability. Ultimately the HoP is responsible for deciding, alongside the accounting officer, whether an increase in salary is justified and reflective of the role’s requirements.

Withregard to advice about market rates of pay for the role, we expect that departments may also engage with the professions to help inform issues such as appropriate rates of pay. The median Civil Service pay by profession is a helpful guide that has been made available to Heads of Professions, however, it is not expected that departments should be aiming to or able to pay the median or the market rate, as they should be considering other factors such as experience, skills and the job weight, alongside equality impact and affordability in their decision.

SCS Pay Exception Approval Form

An exception case requires agreement from the Permanent Secretary and relevant Head of Profession against both of the following criteria:

• sustained high performance, increased effectiveness, deepened capability and expertise; and
• that the individual is relatively low in the pay range and/or have benefited less or not at all from the rise in the minima.

For cases relating to Director General roles, further approval is needed by a Directors General Remuneration Committee.

1. Department

2. Department Contact Details

Name:

Phone:

Email:

3. Title of Role, Role Description, the Advertised rate, Current Salary and Proposed Salary

4. Why is this exception required and how does it meet both of the listed criteria?

1. Sustained high performance, increased effectiveness, deepened capability and expertise; and
2. That the individual is relatively low in the pay range and/or has benefited less or not at all from the rise in the minima.

5. Head of Cross-Government Profession Approval

Signature:

Comments:

6. Permanent Secretary Approval

Signature:

Comments:

7. For Director General cases, DG Remuneration Committee Approval

Signature:

Comments:

Once the appointment and salary are approved and confirmed, a copy of the completed form is to be sent to the SCS Reward team in Civil Service Pay, Policy and Pensions.

1. Eligible members are those employees in an SCS post on or before 31 March 2024. All SCS staff employed in post on or after 1 April 2024 paid below the revised pay band minimum will receive the uplift to the new pay band minima ↩