Judicial salaries should recognise leadership and specialisms, the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) has proposed.
The SSRB advocates ‘better, more flexible recognition for judges who take on leadership roles’—currently, judges receive no financial reward for leadership positions unless they move post into a higher salary group. It states: ‘At present, virtually the only way to recognise judicial leadership is to move a post into a higher salary group.
‘This means that some judges who undertake important leadership roles that do not merit uplift to the next highest pay category are not currently rewarded. A more sophisticated system of leadership increments, that recognised these other leadership roles, would be highly beneficial.’
Similarly, the SSRB proposes that judges who are recognised as experts in highly specialised areas and take on the most complex specialist cases deserve recognition in the form of ‘a single, substantial increment’.
The proposals were published this week in the SSRB’s Consultation on Job Placement, part of its Major Review of the Judicial Salary Structure. The consultation did not cover judicial pay rates or the differentials between salary groups.
The salary structure would also be simplified by combining salary groups 5 and 6.1 into a new Group V, and salary groups 6.2 and 7 into a new Group VI.
However, the SSRB concludes there is ‘no case for radical change’ of the salary structure. Instead, ‘a few posts should be moved to a different pay group, reflecting changes over recent years, but these are a minority’.
The deadline for responses is 14 May 2018. The SSRB will submit its advice to the Lord Chancellor by June.
