Prison officers to get own pay review body

The role of pay review bodies in the public sector pay system is about to be formally extended for the first time in several years with the setting up of a new review body for prison staff.

The move is to be coupled with the replacement of the law which currently makes it unlawful for prison officers to take industrial action, with a voluntary industrial relations agreement.

The review body, which is supported by the Prison Officers' Association (POA), will be chaired by Sir Toby Frere who has previous experience in the armed forces pay review body. It will cover 1,100 prison governors, 24,000 prison officers and 5,900 in related grades in England and Wales (and will also be used by the prison service in Northern Ireland). Its first recommendations will not take effect until January 2002 and in the meantime a pay rise of just 2% has been imposed, to the disappointment of the POA.

* The effectiveness of the review body approach for school teachers in England and Wales has been brought into question by the second largest teaching union, the NASUWT, which has traditionally supported

it.

Writing in the union magazine, Teaching Today, general secretary Nigel de Gruchy accuses the School Teachers Review Body of producing the most disappointing report in 10 years, adding that its claims to independence are "undermined by an increasing tendency to side with the government". He calls for an independent inquiry into teaching pay and conditions determination in England and Wales.