In the first major pay report to determine how much extra public servants should be paid to 'catch up' with the private sector, consultants Reward Partnership concluded that, far from lagging behind, public sector craftworkers' pay is 10% ahead of the private sector. The last pay comparison five years ago concluded that public sector craft workers were 17% behind.

The report, details of which appeared in Industrial Relations News, concluded that, including allowances and extra payments, the 50,000 public sector workers involved are on an average hourly rate of 21.18 against a private sector rate of 18.71. But the report puts the difference at 10% in favour of the public service taking account of job size. This figure does not allow for public sector worker's better pensions.

The report will largely determine how much the pay increases recommended in the main benchmarking exercise affecting the remaining 250,000 public sector workers.

While the unions are bracing themselves for a smaller increase under Benchmarking II later this year than the average 9% they got five years ago, the prospect of getting next to nothing has been greeted with dismay.

While a pay cut or even a zero increase to government staff is a political non-runner, a small benchmarking increase would almost certainly see the nurses walk out of benchmarking again.

They were extremely reluctant to enter benchmarking when they settled their seven week dispute last month and are looking for a minimum 10% increase.

This could unravel the entire benchmarking process.