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Civil Service workers in Northern Ireland have been offered a pay rise which is worth less than 2% to the typical member of staff.

The £552 pay award will apply to all staff apart from the lowest paid and be backdated to August 2022.

Those low-paid workers will have their wages increased to the Real Living Wage level of £10.90 an hour or £21,053 a year.

The final offer includes contractual performance-related progression.

A Department of Finance spokesperson said the department "recognises and regrets the offer is below what staff and unions will expect in a very challenging year".

Official figures suggest the typical full-time civil servant in Northern Ireland was paid £28,706 in 2022, meaning an extra £552 is equivalent to 1.9%.

The UK rate of consumer price inflation in November was 10.7%.

The 2022 pay offer is only being made now because Stormont had neither a budget or a public sector pay policy due to the lack of a functioning executive,

'Deep personal regret'

A budget was finally approved by the secretary of state in November.

That meant senior civil servants could make pay awards but they had to be "affordable" in the context of that budget.

In a memo to staff, the senior official at the Department of Finance, Neil Gibson, said: "I know you will be very disappointed that the offer is not much higher.

"It is a matter of deep personal regret that the pay offer is at the level it is.

"I wish the pay offer could have gone much further, however, we are constrained by the very difficult budgetary position.

"The offer is in no sense a reflection of how you and your work are valued by the Northern Ireland Civil Service."

The general secretary of the Nipsa trade union, Carmel Gates, described the pay offer as "derisory and insulting" and suggested that industrial action will follow.