Publication:Sea Talk Summer 2006/A graded pay scale for officers and warrant officers
By LCDR John Spooner*
The officers' common scale has been replaced by the graded officers' and warrant officers' pay structure, which brings them in line with sailors who have had a similar structure for many years.
Navy now has a framework that enables recognition of work value, differentiated pay where required and the Service chiefs to be more responsive to workforce pressures. The new framework will allow Navy to remunerate people more appropriately than we ever could in the past.
"In line with current industrial relations principles, advancement in pay grade must coincide with a significant change in work value," said the Director of Naval Employment Conditions, CMDR David Wilson.
The framework of the structure was established by rolling in the qualifications and skills components of flying allowance, submarine service allowance, specialist operations allowance and special action forces allowance to form the higher grades.
In February, the Defence Force Remuneration Tribunal (DFRT) handed down its decision approving Phase 3 of the Remuneration Reform Program (RRP) to establish 10 pay grades for officers and eight for warrant officers. After modification of the pay and personnel systems, the new structure was implemented in October.
In establishing the graded officers' and warrant officers' pay scale, the DFRT agreed that a pay grade difference of $3000-$3500 represented meaningful amounts that would adequately recognise a significant change in work value. Unfortunately some of the qualifications and skills rates didn't quite fit the model, so transitional grades were established, e.g. submariners were placed on grade 4C. These grades will disappear when the DFRT places employment groups appropriately in the new structure.
Importantly, while RRP phase 3 changed the pay structure for officers and warrant officers, it didn't change the actual pay anyone received, and the determination specified the qualifying rules applying to the allowances still applied to the corresponding pay grades, including 'sunset' clauses.
Navy is currently preparing work value cases for the DFRT, to determine specific trigger points for pay grade advancement and placement models for employment groups. Engineers are the first Navy group to go before the DFRT with the hearing scheduled as this edition of SeaTalk goes to press in late November. Navy plans to have all officers placed in a graded structure by the middle of next year.
One extra bonus of placement within the graded pay structure is that the MSBS retention bonus, for those who qualify, will increase substantially as a result of the higher salaries associated with pay grades above pay grade 2.
Work has begun on RRP phase 4 to extend the phase 3 principles across sailor ranks.
Information on such issues changes quickly, so the pay and conditions website is the most reliable source. It can be found on the Internet at www.defence.gov.au/dpe/pac and the DRN at intranet.defence.gov.au/pac, while the most recent edition of the DPE Outreach CD-ROM, delivered monthly to ships, is the most current information available offline.
- SO Directorate of Navy Employment Conditions
