Is the NHS pay review body independent?

Nurses successful England, Wales and Northern Ireland person taken concern enactment implicit pay, successful the biggest onslaught successful NHS history.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay has defended the wage connection made to nurses successful England, emphasising it has based it connected recommendations by an autarkic wage reappraisal assemblage (PRB).

How is this assemblage driving the wage decisions and is it truly autarkic from the government?

The salaries of NHS staff, arsenic good arsenic different public-sector workers specified arsenic constabulary officers, teachers and the members of the equipped forces, are recommended by eight wage reappraisal bodies.

They cover 2.5 cardinal workers - astir 45% of public-sector unit - and a wage measure of astir £100 billion.

The PRBs are made up of economists and experts connected quality resources, with acquisition successful some the nationalist and backstage assemblage and are appointed by the applicable authorities department.

The NHS PRB has 8 members. It has been led by Philippa Hird since 2017. Until 2009, she was radical quality resources manager of media steadfast ITV and had antecedently held wide absorption and HR roles successful Granada Group.

The authorities website says: "The appointments are made connected merit and governmental enactment played nary portion successful the determination process."

The authorities besides decides connected remuneration for the members of the PBRs. For the NHS PBR it is presently £350 a time for the chair, for mentation and attendance of meetings, and £300 for the members.

The assemblage takes grounds from a fig of funny parties.

This includes applicable authorities departments, arsenic good arsenic unions and adept organisations, earlier they travel to a proposal connected however wage should alteration each year.

The authorities does accidental what wage grant it wants arsenic portion of its grounds submission and it determines erstwhile it volition respond to and people the reports of wage reappraisal bodies.

The proposal from the PRB is not legally binding.

The authorities usually accepts the recommendations, arsenic it did this year.

There are, however, government-set constraints that the wage reappraisal bodies person to instrumentality into information erstwhile making their recommendations.

The NHS wage reappraisal assemblage - similar different bodies which urge wage for different nationalist assemblage workers - has to enactment with the funds disposable to the department.

In the remit letter to the seat of the NHS Pay Review Body, Health Secretary Steve Barclay said the assemblage should instrumentality into relationship erstwhile forming recommendations:

Ben Zaranko, from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, told Newsnight the remits of the wage reappraisal bodies should not see managing the economy-wide level of inflation. He said they should beryllium much narrowly focused connected "ensuring that we tin attract, clasp and motivate nationalist assemblage workers successful the places wherever we request them".

The NHS PRB recommendations were announced successful the summer, but the enactment that underpinned them took spot earlier successful the year, raising questions implicit whether its determination is present retired of day due to the fact that of the rapidly changing concern regarding ostentation and different factors.

The Chair of the Health Select Committee, Conservative MP Steve Brine, told the World astatine One connected Radio 4 that the PBR made its calculations "before the warfare [in Ukraine] started successful February" and recommended "sending it backmost to the wage reappraisal assemblage to person a look".