An element of DEFRA’s overall pay award is allocated to non-consolidated variable pay related to performance. These payments are used to drive high performance and form part of the pay award for members of staff who demonstrate exceptional performance, for example by exceeding targets set or meeting challenging objectives.
Non-consolidated variable pay awards are funded from within existing pay bill controls, and have to be re-earned each year against pre-determined targets and, as such, do not add to future pay bill costs. The percentage of the pay bill set aside for performance-related awards for the SCS is based on recommendations from the independent Senior Salaries Review Body.
The following table details the number and the total amount of non-consolidated variable pay awards awarded under DEFRA’s standard pay and performance management process for the three most recent performance years for which the relevant payments have been published in the Department’s accounts.
For DEFRA, the data cover staff at grade 6 and below in core-DEFRA and those Executive agencies covered by the core-Department’s terms and conditions i.e. Animal Health, Veterinary Medicines Directorate and the Marine and Fisheries Agency. They also include senior civil servants in core-DEFRA and its Executive agencies (Animal Health, Veterinary Medicines Directorate, Marine and Fisheries Agency, Rural Payments Agency, Veterinary Laboratories Agency, Centre for the Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science and the Central Science Laboratory—which is now part of the Food and Environment Research Agency, which was created on 1 April 2009.
For those Executive agencies that operate delegated pay arrangements (Rural Payments Agency (RPA), Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA), Centre for the Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) and the Central Science Laboratory (CSL), which is now part of the Food and Environment Research Agency, which was created on 1 April 2009, the data cover staff at grade 6 and below only.
Department Number of staff who received a non-consolidated performance payment Total amount of payments (£) Wages and salaries for the year (£) Non-consolidated performance payments as a percentage of wages and salaries Performance year 2005-06 DEFRA 2,395 3,171,792 294,379,000 1.1 VLA 251 39,120 39,485,000 0.1 RPA 505 243,072 88,093,000 0.3 CEFAS 511 566,766 16,881,000 3.3 CSL 260 176,901 21,703,000 0.8 Performance year 2006-07 DEFRA 1,959 3,235,664 252,501,000 1.3 VLA 212 45,327 40,846,000 0.1 RPA 813 425,417 99,667,000 0.4 CEFAS 506 610,125 19,203,000 3.2 CSL 328 233,049 22,127,000 1.1 Performance year 2007-08 DEFRA 1,914 3,072,554 211,900,000 1.5 VLA 226 47,409 40,028,000 0.1 RPA 1,126 507,572 99,405,000 0.5 CEFAS 496 773,747 19,160,000 3.9 CSL 332 264,280 22,657,000 1.2
CEFAS has relatively higher non-consolidated pay when compared as a percentage against the DEFRA network, because they have specifically worked to structure a total rewards package with a greater non consolidated pay element, that is directly performance based and must be re-earned each year. This places a greater link between performance and reward and while their percentage of non consolidated pay is larger than others this is more than offset by their consolidated pay (i.e. salaries) which is low relative to the DEFRA network and Whitehall.