Public servants get minimum 15% pay boost as new salary scale takes effect

Anguilla’s public servants have been awarded a minimum 15% pay increase as part of a newly implemented compensation framework.

The new salary structure was drawn up following an independent public service pay and grading review which took place over the past year.

Government workers were first informed of their individual compensation outcomes in June, which led to some pushback and a temporary pause being placed on the new programme.

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However, after considering 125 appeals and grievances, the Office of the Deputy Governor lifted the pause and adopted a revised framework at the end of August.

Dr Kelly Clark, public service reform advisor, told Anguilla Focus the revised approach preserves the original independent job evaluation structure.

It also “incorporates the validated grievance and classification outcomes, and establishes a minimum 15% increase for non-executive public officers”, she said.

“That 15% is a floor, not an across-the-board increase. Officers whose evaluated increases are higher retain those higher outcomes.”

Salary review

In early 2024, the Government of Anguilla engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to undertake a comprehensive job evaluation and reclassification exercise.

In June 2025, during an Executive Council meeting, Deputy Governor Perin Bradley announced that PwC had been awarded the contract to conduct the review, and it was in its early stages.

Over the next year, the independent consultants spoke with employees and independently assessed public sector roles, responsibilities and salaries against regional benchmarks.

During an Executive Council meeting on 22 May this year, members approved the adoption and implementation of the report and associated job framework across the public service.

According to the minutes of the meeting, they agreed that it would take effect “from the effective date of the relevant supplementary appropriation”.

They also approved a stabilisation period of 24 months following implementation, during which the approved grading outcomes and salary placements will not be reopened.

Moving public funds

During the sitting of the assembly, members approved a supplementary budget which allowed EC$25.8 million to be moved from the Ministry of Finance to individual ministries and departments.

Richardson Hodge, who also serves as finance minister, said its purpose was to meet the salary difference and associated employment costs arising from the public sector compensation review.

She explained that $40m had been set aside for the new pay framework in the 2026 Budget but only $11m had been allocated at that time.

The remaining $29m was held centrally in the finance ministry’s restricted expenditure account as a control measure while payroll and departmental allocations were finalised.

Following completion, a total of $36.8m was determined as being needed, so $25.8m was authorised to be formally transferred to the relevant ministries and departments to be spent.

The premier noted that statutory limits on internal reallocations under the Financial Administration and Audit Act made it too significant to be handled administratively, requiring full assembly approval.

Salary restraint

The premier said public officers had endured years of salary restraint, including pay reductions, suspended increments and limited salary progression.

She said salaries were reduced by an average of about 7% in 2009, with the reductions described at the time as temporary salary suspensions or deferred earnings rather than permanent cuts.

A further average 3.5% reduction was introduced in 2010, alongside a freeze on annual salary increments, as the government continued to face fiscal challenges.

As fiscal conditions improved in 2022, the government began restoring increments and moving officers to the main scale, but this highlighted wider problems with an outdated and inconsistent system, she said.

The premier added that a broader review had therefore been needed to address 18 years of salary restraint, compression, limited progression and structural inconsistencies.

“Salary is not just a number in the estimates, it affects households, mortgages, rent, school fees, groceries, transportation, savings and the ability of families to plan their lives with some measure of certainty,” she said.

Cost to government

The premier went on to say the annual cost of the reform was $41.41m and, while representing a significant increase, had been tested against the fiscal framework and was considered affordable.

The figure represents the estimated full-year fiscal impact across the public sector, including established employees, wage workers, parliamentary salaries, statutory body subsidies and related revenue effects.

The largest component is established employees, she said, whose total employment cost is expected to rise from about $143.2m to $180m per year, an increase of $36.8m or 25.7%.

“The framework must be implemented carefully, monitored closely and protected from drift. That is how we keep faith with public officers and that is how we keep faith with the public finances,” she said.

She concluded by saying the government will address concerns while maintaining the approved framework, which she said was intended to replace years of inconsistencies.

Anguilla Focus has requested a copy of the new salary framework from the Department of Public Administration and is awaiting a response.

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