Correspondence

Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration remit letter: 2021 to 2022

Published 18 December 2020

Applies to England

Mr Christopher Pilgrim
Chair Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration
Office of Manpower Economics
Fleetbank House
2‒6 Salisbury Square
London
EC4Y 8JX

Dear Mr Pilgrim,

I should first of all like to offer my thanks for the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration’s (DDRB) work over the past year on the 2020 report and your recommendations for pay round 2020 to 2021. The government continues to appreciate and value the independent expert advice and contribution that the DDRB makes.

The timing of the Spending Review announcement has unfortunately delayed the commencement of Pay Round 2021 to 2022. I am writing now to set out how the government proposes working with the DDRB in relation to the 2021 to 2022 pay round and to formally begin the Review Body process.

You will have seen that the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that pay rises in the public sector will be restrained and targeted in 2021 to 2022 at the Spending Review. As the Chancellor set out, COVID-19 is having a very significant impact on the economy, labour market and the fiscal position and has supressed earnings growth and increased redundancies in the private sector and this is reflected across departmental spending settlements. Taken from the latest ONS data, public sector total remuneration in 2019 was already 7% ahead of the private sector, adjusting for characteristics, and it has since been shielded from the pandemic’s economic effects.^{[footnote 1]} According to ONS average weekly earnings data, in the 6 months to September the private sector has seen a pay cut of nearly 1% compared with last year, yet public sector earnings were up by almost 4%.^{[footnote 2]} Since March, the number of people in employment in the UK fell by 782,000, while over a similar period of time public sector employment increased.

While we have announced a pause of pay awards for the majority of the public sector, we recognise the uniquely challenging impact coronavirus is having on the NHS and so have made a commitment to continue to provide NHS workers with a pay rise. This means that for medical and dental staff not already within agreed multi-year deals we would welcome pay recommendations from the DDRB. We expect these recommendations to take account of the extremely challenging fiscal and economic context, and consider the affordability of pay awards. HM Treasury will set out the fiscal and economic context in more detail as the round progresses and my department will provide you with evidence on the affordability of pay awards.

It is vitally important planned workforce growth is affordable, particularly given the NHS budget is set until 2023 to 2024 and there is a close relationship between pay and staff numbers. The affordability of pay recommendations will have to be considered within the context of the significant financial and economic pressures that have resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic both within the NHS and wider public finances. The evidence that I will provide in the coming months will support you in your consideration of affordability and I request that you describe in your final report what steps you have taken to take account of affordability, the need for workforce growth and making best use of the funds available to deliver the best care for patients. These considerations must also be balanced with the importance of continuing to recruit, retain and motivate NHS staff.

As you are aware, we reached a multi-year pay agreement (2019 to 2020 to 2022 to 2023) for doctors and dentists in training and so we are not asking the DDRB to make pay recommendations for this group. As is usual, however, we would welcome your comments and observations on the evidence you receive from the Department of Health and Social Care and other parties on this group.

You are invited as usual to make recommendations on an annual pay award for consultants.

For specialty doctors and associate specialists we are negotiating a multi-year pay and contract reform deal. Any agreed deal will give valued staff a fair pay rise alongside improving recruitment and retention and developing reforms which better reflect modern working practices, service needs and fairness for employees. We would expect any recommendations to be informed by the outcome of talks with the British Medical Association (BMA).

Independent contractor general medical practitioners are subject to a 5-year pay agreement between NHS England and NHS Improvement and the BMA, and therefore no pay recommendation is being sought for this group. You are invited to make recommendations on uplifts to the minimum and maximum of the salaried general medical practitioner pay scales. Recommendations will need to be informed by affordability and in particular the fixed contract resources available to practices under the 5-year GP contract.

We invite you to make recommendations on the pay element of remuneration for dentists employed by, or providing services to, the NHS. (As set out above, dentists in training are covered by a multi-year deal and we are therefore not asking you for a recommendation for this group).

As always, while your remit covers the whole of the United Kingdom, it is for each administration to make its own decisions on its approach to this year’s pay round and to communicate this to you directly.

We are hoping to expediate the process as much as possible this year and would welcome your report in early May 2021, subject to further discussion with the Office of Manpower Economics.

Finally, I would like to thank you again for your invaluable contribution, and I look forward to continuing our dialogue in future.

Yours ever,

Matt Hancock
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

1. Public and private sector earnings: 2019, ONS. ↩

2. Average weekly earnings: 2020, ONS. ↩