The Impact of the Public Sector Pay Review Bodies in the UK

This paper examines the impact of the Pay Review Bodies (PRBs) on the public sector pay of their remit groups. We compare the real weekly earnings of groups of workers in occupations covered by PRBs, in the remainder of the public sector and in the private sector using LFS data from 1993 to 2006 for 10 occupational sub-groups. We describe how the pattern of relative occupational pay varies over time and by gender and can be interpreted as compensating pay differentials. In several public sector occupations, men incur a much larger earnings penalty than women. Our difference- in-difference impact estimation method relies on comparison of the difference between any specific PRB group and other (non-PRB) public sector workers over time. For the most part we find that the PRBs have had little or no practical impact on earnings over and above that of comparable public sector workers not covered by the PRBs.