Correspondence

Senior Salaries Review Body remit letter: 2026 to 2027

Published 22 July 2025

Lea Paterson
Chair, Senior Salaries Review Body
Office of Manpower Economics
First floor, 10 Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0NB

Dear Mrs Paterson,

I would firstly like to offer my thanks for the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB)’s work over the past year on the 2025 to 2026 report. I appreciate the independent, expert advice and valuable contribution that the SSRB makes.

I write to you now to formally commence the 2026 to 2027 pay round.

As you know, on 15 May, we published the new pay framework for very senior managers (VSMs). This new framework has been designed to drive consistency, increase transparency and limit  VSM pay inflation while giving sufficient flexibility to attract talented candidates to the most challenging roles and providers. One of its key aims is to provide a stronger link between pay and operational performance in order to incentivise VSMs to focus on the improvement of services. I would like to thank you for providing comments on this framework in your last report, which officials are carefully considering.

On 3 July, we published our 10 Year Health Plan for England: fit for the future. This plan seeks to make 3 big shifts from hospital to community, sickness to prevention, and analogue to digital, and sets the context for the pay round. A valued, motivated and skilled NHS workforce is essential to delivering our plan, which is why we will publish a 10 Year Workforce Plan to create a more empowered workforce ready to deliver a transformed service.

We were pleased to be able to accept your headline recommendations for 2025 to 2026 pay awards. However, it came in above the figures we set out as affordable within evidence. Over the past few months, we have identified how extra funds will be freed up by cutting duplication and waste, and through abolishing NHS England, and reshaping and reducing integrated care board (ICB) costs by 50% to empower NHS staff and deliver better care for patients. As the Spending Review confirmed, all pay must be funded from departmental budgets and there will be no additional funding available for pay settlements. My department’s evidence will set out the funds available to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) for 2026 to 2027, following the Spending Review last month, as well as the recruitment and retention context alongside, earnings data and our plan for building an NHS fit for the future.

We know that public sector workers delivering our vital public services deserve timely pay awards. We announced 2025 to 2026 pay awards 2 months earlier than last year and remain committed to bringing 2026 to 2027 pay announcements forwards further. That is why we are launching this pay round 2 months earlier than the previous pay round.

I would be grateful if you could support an earlier pay announcement by submitting your report at the earliest point that allows you to give due consideration to the relevant evidence. I recognise that changing the timeline from recent years will present challenges for you, but I am sure you also share the government’s belief in the importance of returning to more timely annual pay processes. To enable you to submit your report earlier, our department will aim to co-operate with all your deadlines and bring the evidence process forward.

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.

I would like to thank you again for your and the review body’s invaluable contribution to the pay round and look forward to receiving your report for 2026 to 2027 in due course.

Yours ever,

Rt Hon Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care