The Scottish Government pay policy, published in early February as part of the Scottish Budget, sets a number of key policy goals

• providing a guaranteed basic pay increase of 3% for public sector workers who earn below £80,000 
• continuing the requirement for employers to pay staff the real Living Wage, now set at £9.30 an hour
• providing a guaranteed cash underpin of £750 for public sector workers who earn  £25,000 or less
• limiting the maximum basic pay increase for those earning £80,000 or more to £2,000
  
• allowing flexibilities for employers to use up to 0.5% of paybill savings on baseline salaries to address clearly evidenced equality issues in existing pay and grading structures.

Speaking on behalf of Prospect, national secretary Richard Hardy said: "We are very glad that our campaigning on the issue of the two-tier pay system has been successful.

"We spoke at length on this with the First Minister and other senior cabinet colleagues and we welcome the move, which we felt created a false view of 'deserving' and 'undeserving' public servants.

"We recognise that the timetable this year hampered the Scottish Government's preparations and planning for the budget, and to an extent its ability to even set out a full costed budget.

"However we remain disappointed that the promised 'journey to pay restoration' is again slowed considerably. While 3% certainly protects our members' wages, and the underpin helps low paid members, real progress to pay restoration remains slow," he concluded.

Prospect and the other civil service unions will now engage with all the Scottish pay bargaining units.