Court Suspends New Salaries and Remuneration Commission Job Evaluation Report

The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) released a new guide on job evaluation in the public sector last week with the aim of attain a harmonized grading structure and addressing any existing remuneration and benefits disparities and inequities in the public service.

The Commission identified Job Evaluation as a strategy to achieve competitive public sector remuneration and benefits package but this exercise will have to be put on hold following a court order that suspended the report.

This follows a case that was filed by 42 county secretaries who claimed to have been demoted by the commission from Job Group T to Job Group S irregularly, arguing that being placed in Job Group S with their positions as the heads of county governments, they are alienated therefore leaving the devolved units without a proper and clear line of administration.

The court was told that the Job Group T salary category for the county secretaries was set by the Transition Authority at between 152,060 shillings and 302,980 shillings. The petitioners are seeking a permanent injunction restraining SRC, its representatives, employees, servants and/or agents or anybody working under or for it from implementing, releasing, circulating or in any way publishing final job evaluation results on the counties.

The County Secretaries are also seeking a declaration that they be compensated Sh1 million each or any other amount that the court deems sufficient and/or appropriate by the SRC for violating their constitutional rights.

The Government of Kenya through the SRC had initiated a reform in far reaching public sector pay based on the principle of “equal pay for work of equal value”. The immediate objectives of the reforms were so as to achieve internal equity within and across public sector organizations/institutions and to ensure external competitiveness i.e., to attract and retain competent workforce into the public service. According to the report, the broad aim of the pay reform was to achieve effective service delivery.

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