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No scrapping of Distant Islands Allowance payments   18/11/10

 

 

 

 

 

The Scottish Distant Islands Allowance paid to public service employees has survived the Scottish Government’s budget cuts.

 

The Comhairle has asked islanders where they think savings can be made as service budgets face savage cuts.

 

Getting rid of the Islands Allowance could save millions of pounds over the coming years.

 

The across-the-board payment is seen by critics as a wasteful bonus to highly paid personnel.

 

One example is the rector’s job at the Nicolson Insitute. The present postholder, Kevin Trewartha, is leaving and the vacancy offers a £1,800 distant island’s allowance on top of the regular £71,823 annual salary.

 

Though the island’s allowance works out at about the equivalent of five working days’ pay for running the islands’ largest secondary school, it represents a much higher percentage of lower paid workers’ income.

 

The allowance was introduced as an incentive to encourage qualified, trained, professional staff to relocate from the mainland to islands.

 

Successive governments have retained the payment to help attract personnel in hard-to-fill posts or to shift to remoter island areas.

 

All eligible public service workers are entitled to the allowance - including islanders who had no requirement to relocate - and it is often seen as a form of compensation for the more expensive living costs in island communities.

 

It is estimated about half the Western Isles’ workforce receive islands allowance given the very high proportion of public sector jobs in the islands.

 

The payment supplements the wages of staff at the council, health board, job centre, Social Security and other public services. It is paid to blue collar workers and nurses as well as office staff.

 

The allowance is included in pay negotiations for all categories of employees. Radical changes in single status settlements - which resulted in many public white collar employees face a salary cut under the wage equalisation measures- preserved the payments.

 

However, finance minister Jhon Swinney has announced a pay freeze for public sector workers for staff earning more than £21,000 pounds.

 

Employees below that cut-off limit will get a minimum annual pay increase of £250.

 

, and bear down on the cost of the pay bill for the highest paid. This will also suspend all access to bonuses next year