Welsh government makes 2023-24 pay offer

The CSP welcomes the Welsh Government pay offer, which was made following negotiations with the CSP and other health care unions.

20 April 2023 - 7:30PM

CSP members will now be consulted through May.

Following the announcement of the English 2023-24 pay offer, health care unions successfully negotiated that the latest Welsh pay offer for 2023-24 should also revisit and improve upon the 2022-23 pay award that has already been implemented in that nation.

The offer

The 2023-24 pay offer would represent a pay rise of 5 per cent for most Agenda for Change (AfC) staff, with this rising for staff in bands 1 and 2 to ensure the Welsh NHS exceeds the Real Living Wage.
A new non-consolidated (one off) 2022-23 Recovery Payment of between £900 and £1190, depending on AfC band. This is additional to the extra 3 per cent payment (1.5 percentage points of which were consolidated) that the Welsh government implemented following health union acceptance in February.
A commitment to work in social partnership on a number of non-pay elements. These include, but are not limited to a commitment to exploring a reduction of the working week for AfC staff with the aim of moving to a 36 hour working week without loss of earnings.

Find out more

Visit our Wales pay page to:

review FAQs on the consultation, negotiation process, and offer
register for a webinar on 5 May to discuss the pay offer with CSP members and staff
access documentation on the pay offer by AfC band, and details of the non-pay commitments.

The Welsh government has made this offer without clarification from the UK government on whether the offer they have made in England will come with budget consequentials to the devolved governments. This produces a risk to the Welsh government and the NHS budgets, and the CSP calls on the UK government to ensure this pay deal is fully funded.

CSP senior negotiating officer Adam Morgan says:

'We welcome the open way the Welsh government have negotiated this new offer. It was a difficult negotiation and we pushed the Welsh government as far as we possibly could, especially in the absence of any additional funding from the UK government.

Whilst this doesn't go as far as we or our members would like, and is still significantly below the current rate of inflation, this is the best we could achieve through negotiation.

'There are also a significant number of non-pay elements which we have agreed, and we think these will substantially improve working conditions once implemented. Furthermore, the Welsh government have committed to the principle of pay restoration, which we will hold them to account on in future pay talks.'

Next steps

The CSP's member-led pay sub group is recommending members accept the offer as it is the best that can be achieved through negotiation. However, it is now up to members whether they accept or reject during the consultation.

Our consultation will open 24 April, running to noon on 19 May. If members working in the NHS in Wales have not received an invite by Wednesday 26 April, contact the CSP enquiries team.

In the meantime, we are asking all members to check and update your membership profile information - particularly employer and workplace information, and preferred contact details.

Following our consultation, the CSP and all health unions will report their consultation results to the Welsh Partnership Forum in late May.

Whether the pay offer is overall accepted or rejected will be a majority vote, with votes weighted by each union's membership size. The pay offer will only be implemented if there is a majority acceptance of the offer.