ONS claims public sector pay is 7.8pc above others
GOVERNMENT employees were paid 7.8 per cent more than their private sector counterparts as of April 2010, official data revealed yesterday.
The pay gap between the UK’s two biggest sectors climbed by 2.5 per cent in the final three years of Labour’s last parliamentary term, the figures show.
In 2007, public sector workers were being paid 5.3 per cent more than in private companies, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed.
Banks that fell under the control of the state from 2008 continued to count as private sector companies in order to avoid distorting the comparison, the ONS said.
“It is absolutely staggering that there’s such a gap between the public and the private sector, and that it widened over a period of recession when the UK was supposed to be reining in government spending,” said Emma Boon of the Taxpayers’ Alliance.