Pay in the NICS Statistical Bulletin - User Guide

Issued by: Human Resource Consultancy Services

Colby House,

Stranmillis Court,

Belfast,

BT9 5RR

Last Updated: April 2025

Contact: Gayle Kennedy

Telephone: 028 9038 8443

Email:workforcestatisticsandanalysis@finance-ni.gov.uk

URL:NI Civil Service Human Resource Statistics

1. INTRODUCTION

Statistical information on the pay of staff in the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) is produced and published annually by statisticians in Workforce Statistics & Analysis branch (WSA), which is part of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA), an Agency within the Department of Finance (DoF).

The published information relates to approximately 23,000 staff working in the nine Northern Ireland Departmentsand other bodies including the Public Prosecution Service, the Health and Safety Executive Northern Ireland, and the Office of the Attorney General for Northern Ireland.

The bulletin is produced once a year and is published on the DoF website, typically in December. The publication date for the bulletin is announced on the GOV.UK release calendar. These statistics are classified as Official Statistics, produced to high professional standards as set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics, and are free from any political interference.

The publication contains details of the median pay for NICS staff, and separate tables are provided detailing median pay by grade, gender, disability status, community background, and age. Tables are also provided detailing comparisons between median salaries of civil servants in NI and the rest of the UK, and between mean and median basic weekly pay in the NICS and the wider public and private sectors in NI. Tables are also provided detailing changes in median pay over time. WSA have also developed a video, which is published along with the bulletin, to better explain the median and why it is preferred to other methods of determining the average, particularly in the context of pay statistics. This video, which is updated annually with information from the latest bulletin, can be found here.

This User Guide is designed to be a useful reference with explanatory notes on the issues and classifications which are important to the production and presentation of the pay statistics.

2. INFORMATION COLLECTED

Information is collected for all staff who work in the NICS, including both industrial and non-industrial staff, and staff in the NI Prison Service (NIPS). Figures in the annual Pay statistics bulletin refer to a snapshot of the number of staff in post (headcount) at the end of March in the relevant year.

Information is collected on the Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) annual basic pay of each individual member of staff.

Data are also collected on gender, age, community background, disability status, grade, full-time/part-time equivalency, and a number of other variables.

Data have been published annually since 2011/12, although some aggregated anonymised data is available for earlier years.

3. INFORMATION SOURCES

The source of most (c. 95%) of the information used is HRConnect, which is an HR administration system which has been extensively modified to meet the specific needs of the NICS. This is managed on a day-to-day basis by private sector companies which run regular data quality checks and correct errors on the system if necessary.

Pay data for approximately 1,300 non-custodial staff in the Northern Ireland Prison Service (NIPS) are obtained from Compass, the data system used by NIPS, as these staff are not yet fully integrated into the HRConnect system.

For the purposes of comparison, we also include some aggregated tables which are obtained from the Annual Survey of Hours and Pay (ASHE). These allow us to compare pay of staff in the NICS with those in the wider NI public sector, and with the NI private sector.

ASHE is carried out by NISRA and is the most comprehensive source of pay information in the UK. It is the official source of information on, for example, the number of jobs paid below the national minimum wage and is also used to produce estimates of the proportions of jobs within different workplace pension categories. ASHE is based on a 1% sample of employee jobs in NI (c. 6,800) taken from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) Pay As You Earn (PAYE) records. Quality information for ASHE can be found here.

4. INFORMATION PROCESSING AND VALIDATION

Administrative Data Downloads The data extracts from HRConnect and Compass are taken on a monthly basis and are transferred in an agreed format to secure servers within NISRA. The details of the variables included in the data extract from both systems have been developed and amended over the years with the respective policy and IT experts for both systems. The relevant documentation is stored on the NICS’s Records Management system, Content Manager(CM).

Data extracts from HRConnect and Compass are merged using the SPSS statistical software package, and any duplicates are removed at this stage to ensure that there is no double counting of individuals. Figure 1 provides an overview of the process of data extraction and merging, and Figure 2 provides an overview of the process of producing the annual Pay statistics bulletin.

HR Connect Monthly Data Extract Process

Step 1. - Monthly data request submitted to HRConnect via Oracle/ HRConnect
Step 2. - Monthly data extracts run on night in question (generally at the weekend)
Step 3. - Monthly data files are saved on Fujitsu Application server
Step 4. - Data securely transferred to IT Assist staging server
Step 5. - Data automatically moved to NISRA server via secure file transfer protocol
Step 6. - Fujitsu application server is automatically purged/data deleted

NI Prison Service Monthly Data Extract Process

Step 1 - NIPS extract data according to agreed specification
Step 2 - Files sent by NIPS to NISRA via secure email
Step 3 - Access to pay files are password restricted – a separate email is sent with the password

At the end of the data extract process for both systems, data are combined from both sources to form an overall NICS dataset from which the official statistics are derived.

Figure 1 - Monthly Extract Process

Figure 1 - Monthly Extract Process

REPORT PRODUCTION PROCESS GUIDE
HR Connect Data
Step 1a - Majority of changes to pay on HR system undertaken by Capita informed by NICS HR, including changes to pay and staff movement etc. Any issues with pay are likely to be highlighted by staff.

Step 2a - Data are extracted at end of financial year unless the pay award has not been implemented. In that case, data are extracted when pay award issued. SFTP used to transfer extracts from HRConnect to WSA server via Fujitsu.

Step 3a - Initial validation checks undertaken. Queries raised with ESS and NICSHR sections as required.

Step 4a - HRConnect dataset created.

COMPASS (NIPS Prison Grade staff) data
Step 1b - Centralised model: Majority of changes to HR system undertaken by central HR team, including changes to pay and staff movement etc.

Step 2b - Financial year dataset specified by NIPS staff within NICSHR and extracted at end of financial year. Password protected files e-mailed to WSA contact.

Step 3b - Initial validation checks undertaken. Queries raised with NIPS HR staff as required.

Step 4b - COMPASS dataset created.

Step 5 – At this point the HRConnect (step 4a) and COMPASS datasets(step 4b) are merged and additional validation checks undertaken. Queries are raised with ESS and NICSHR as necessary.

Step 6 - NICS dataset is created/finalised. It contains individual’s details such as pay, employee number, NINO, gender, community background, disability status, grade, age, organisation, and working pattern.

Step 7 - Run report analyses.

Step 8 - Sense check and compare with previous analyses undertaken.

Step 9 - First draft of the report produced.

Step 10 - First check of report is undertaken by Assistant Statistician. At this point, release date of report finalised. Preliminary date for next report agreed and notified to the Publication Hub.

Step 11 – Second draft of the report produced.

Step 12 - QA undertaken by DP Statistician– at this point, syntax is amended and report syntax re-run if necessary.

Step 13 – Third draft of the report produced. At this point, website changes are prepared. Pre-release access list is revised. Ministerial Submission and Press Notice drafted.

Step 14 - Final QA by Head of Branch – at this point, syntax is amended and report syntax is re-run if necessary.

Step 15 - Report, Ministerial Submission and Press Release finalised, pre-released and published. At this point the report process reviewed. Changes to database validation process, report analysis, checking etc. noted and scheduled to be included in future.

Figure 2 - Report Production - Process Map

Figure 2 - Report Production - Process Map

Figure 2 - Report Production - Process Map

Data Quality Checking and Validation

NICS HR, ESS, and Capita have a range of data quality processes that they run on a monthly basis, to identify and correct errors or anomalies in a range of key variables. NICS HR/ESS run regular Business Intelligence reports that check for a range of data quality issues. Any errors or mistakes that are identified from these are then referred onto the Shared Service Centre (Capita) for amendment/correction.

Further checks are hard coded into the HRConnect system (MD050s). These are internal validation checks that look for consistency in the data recorded on HRConnect.

In addition to these, pay data are also subject to quality assurance procedures carried out by NISRA staff using SPSS syntax. This syntax is regularly updated.

In addition to the set-up checks that are carried out when the files are received from HRConnect and Compass, the Paybill team undertake further quality assurance checks as follows;

  1. Ensuring that any staff who should not be included in the data are removed. This includes:
    • staff on career break or secondment,
    • staff in certain NDPBs/organisations.
    • Home Civil Service staff
    • direct employees,
    • Employment Support Scheme placed staff,
    • staff recorded as ‘Payroll Only’
    • Special Advisers,
    • Contingent workers,
  2. Identifying and removing duplicate records from the data set to ensure that there is only one record in the final dataset for each individual member of staff
  3. Checking that essential data fields are completed for all staff. The completion rate for certain fields, such as pay information and Employee Number, must be 100%
  4. Checking that an individual’s pay is on a valid step on the correct pay scale for their grade, or confirming that they are on a personal pay point where the pay looks unreasonable for that grade.
  5. Checking that all staff have a pay commensurate with their working pattern (full-time or part-time)
  6. Checking that all staff have an appropriate Full-Time Equivalence (FTE) and, where this is missing, re-calculating as necessary
  7. Checking that pay information refers to pay only and does not include a non-pay component (e.g. allowance). In cases where a non-pay component is detected, pay is re-calculated correctly
  8. Checking that all staff are assigned valid grade descriptors/codes, Branch/Division codes, Department, and cost-centre codes.
  9. Checking that all date fields are complete and correctfor each member of staff, and are properly formatted.

Any anomalies or potential errors identified as a result of these checks are referred back via appropriate channels to HRConnect or Compass to be corrected at source by the data supplier on their IT systems, or for NISRA look-up tables (e.g. for Branch/Division/Department codes) to be updated and amended appropriately.

Time-series checks are carried out to compare on a monthly and quarterly basis, the number of staff and the associated paybill for each Department and major sub-divisions within each Department (e.g. Directorates). Any significant and unexplained increases or decreases which occur, in percentage or absolute terms, are investigated with the data supplier and either confirmed or corrected. There is no set measure of tolerance in terms of absolute/percentage change which would trigger a query to the data supplier, but the time-series comparisons provide a useful indication if the data are consistent with historical trends.

With reference to the aggregated data obtained from ASHE, which is reported in the annual Pay statistics bulletin, see Section 3 above for data quality information.

In January 2015 the UK Statistics Authority published guidance to help statisticians ensure that official statistics sourced from administrative data comply with the requirements of the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. The Quality Assurance for Administrative Data (QAAD) toolkit is designed for producers of statistics to apply to their statistics sourced from administrative data.

The full QAAD report covering the Pay in the NICS report is available on the Official Statistics section of the NISRA website.

5. ACCURACY OF INFORMATION

The data on NICS pay, obtained from the various administrative sources, have been assessed by NISRA statisticians as being accurate and of good quality. Given the importance of pay to employees, and the fact that employees are very likely to flag up problems with the data (for example if they don’t receive their pay or if they don’t receive their correct level of pay), the pay data are considered to be as complete and accurate as possible.

6. PAYBILL DATA SOURCES – STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Strengths
- Paybill data derived from HRConnect and Compass are underpinned by well-established internal (to HRConnect and Compass) quality assurance procedures and audit controls.
- Data from HRConnect covers almost 100% of NICS staff. A small number proportion of NICS staff (i.e. non-custodial staff in the Northern Ireland Prison Service) are not included in HRConnect data and data for these staff are requested from source.
- HRConnect is maintained and managed under contract by Fujitsu, keeping pace with and taking advantage of technological progress and updates.
- For the most part, there is a high level of standardisation of grade descriptions, pay scales, and personal identification data across the NICS as recorded on HRConnect.
- There is a well-established and robust data transfer process.
- Employees are very likely to notice and flag up problems with the data, and thereby add another layer of quality assurance.

Weaknesses
- There is some potential for delays or errors in updating HRConnect data when staff change post, are promoted, etc. This is particularly an issue when a member of staff is, for example, temporarily promoted, or experiences multiple moves over a short period of time.
- A small proportion of NICS staff are not yet included in HRConnect, and data for these staff are requested from source.
- Data may be subject to clerical error, but unlikely to occur and therefore low risk. The need to request non-HR Connect data from source can lead to delays in provision of data and correcting errors.
- Non-HR Connect data (i.e. data for non-custodial NIPS staff) are not standardised, and require extra processing and validation to allow comparability with HRConnect data.

7. WHAT WE PUBLISH AND WHO USES IT

Once data are validated and processed, a number of tables are produced (using SPSS) for the annual Pay statistics bulletin. These tables detail the median pay for each analogous grade broken down by gender, age group, disability status, and community background. These tables represent a snapshot of the position as at March in the latest financial year. Tables are also provided which detail changes to the median pay for each analogous grade over time (usually the last 6 full financial years).

The key tables in the publication are;
• Staff numbers (headcount) by pay band and analogous grade level (snapshot)
• Staff numbers (headcount) by pay band and gender (snapshot)
• Median pay by analogous grade Level and gender (snapshot)
• Median pay by analogous grade Level and community background (snapshot)
• Median pay by analogous grade Level and disability (snapshot)
• Median pay by analogous grade Level and age-group (snapshot)
• Median pay by gender (for the last 6 financial years)
• Median pay by analogous grade level (for the last 6 financial years)
• Increase in pay by analogous grade level (since the last financial year)
• Median pay by age (snapshot)
• Median pay of civil servants across the UK, by analogous grade level (snapshot)
• Mean and median Basic Weekly Pay (snapshot)

The Pay statistics bulletin provides details of the average (median) pay received by NI civil servants during the year in question and compares this with the previous year and reports on the level of percentage increase. It also highlights the percentage increase experienced across each analogous grade level compared with the previous year as well comparing this with trends across the rest of the UK and with the private sector.

The main users of the Pay statistics bulletin are NICS HR and Departmental managers across the NICS, who would use these statistics for policy making/monitoring, responding to information requests, and to aid decisions on resource allocation.

The bulletin also receives media coverage at the time of publication, which mostly focuses on the level of pay increase across the NICS with a focus on any particularly high increases within a specific grade level of staff. The average (median) pay within the NICS also gets media coverage.

People & OD colleagues also use WSA paybill analyses derived from HR Connect and Compass data to model various annual paybill change scenarios across the NICS each year during its negotiations with Trade Union Side as part of the annual pay negotiations.

These data also form the basis of an Equal Pay review of NICS pay that WSA conducts each year to identify any differences in the pay of staff within NICS by gender, community background, age, and disability.

8. FIGURES FOR UK COUNTRIES AND INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS

Pay statistics for the NICS are analysed on the same basis as those published by the Cabinet Office (previously the Office for National Statistics (ONS)) i.e. median FTE basic pay. For this reason, we can provide pay comparisons between the NICS, the Scottish Government, and some, but not all, GB Departments.

In some GB departments, the grades of certain staff are combined, and we cannot provide comparable information for those Departments. The annual Pay statistics bulletin contains a list of those GB departments for which we canprovide comparable data, and tables are provided which show the minimum and maximum of the pay range for each grade in each Department, for comparison and contextualisation of the relevant pay for staff in the NICS.

Information on Civil Service pay is not published at Departmental level by the devolved administration in Wales (although it is published at regional level), or by the government of the Republic of Ireland. We are therefore unable to provide comparisons between NICS pay and the pay of civil servants in those two countries.

Aggregated data obtained from the Annual Survey of Hours and Pay (ASHE) allows us to compare pay of staff in the NICS with those in the wider NI public sector, and with the NI private sector. This also permits us to compare pay of staff in the NICS with the rest of the UK public and private sectors, if necessary.

ASHE is carried out by NISRA and is the most comprehensive source of pay information in the UK. It is the official source of information on, for example, the number of jobs paid below the national minimum wage and is also used to produce estimates of the proportions of jobs within different workplace pension categories.

9. CORRECTIONS AND REVISIONS POLICY

This revisions policy has been developed in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics. The Code is clear that producers show they comply by holding themselves accountable to adherence to clear publication policies – for example, to pre-announce official statistics and to adhere to the date; and to notify users promptly of corrections and revisions. The Revisions and Correction policy covers all WSA outputs classified as Official or National Statistics. WSA intend to be open and transparent about any revisions to outputs which may be made. This will help to ensure confidence among users. Within WSA publications, the revision of statistics could be required for the following reasons:

• A change in statistical methodology or in methodology used to collect required data;
• Receipt of updated information which alters our understanding of the previous periods (e.g.  late recording on an administrative IT system used for operational purposes); or
• Errors or weaknesses in our systems or processes or in the source material.

Further detail on the WSA Corrections and Revisions Policy can be found on the WSA web page.

10. NOTES AND DEFINITIONS

The Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS)
The NICS is the Civil Service of the devolved administration consisting of 9 Departments and Public Prosecution Service. In this publication, this also includes NICS staff working in the Health & Safety Executive Northern Ireland, and in the Attorney General’s Office. Seconded staff and staff in Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs) are excluded.

Coverage of NICS Staff
Data are collected for all industrial and non-industrial staff, both permanent and casual. When analyses are broken down by analogous grade, separate rows/columns are presented for Industrial staff and Other staff (Department of Justice staff not on NICS pay scales).

Pay
‘Pay’ and ‘pay band’ refer to gross basic pay only. Overtime, allowances, and non-consolidated payments are excluded.

Median Pay
Most of the tables within the publication relate to median pay. The median is the value below which 50 per cent of employees fall – in other words, the middle value in any range of values. For pay data, this measure is preferred over the mean because it is less influenced by extreme values, and pay data by its nature can be subject to extreme values. Some of the tables also include the upper quartile (which is the value below which 75 per cent of employees fall), the lower quartile (which is the value below which 25 per cent of employees fall), the top decile (which is the value below which 90 per cent of employees fall) and the bottom decile (which is the value below which 10 per cent of employees fall).

Analogous grades
Each grade in each occupational group has an associated grade level. The table below lists the grade levels in descending order of seniority, along with the abbreviation used for each grade.

Grade Level Abbreviation
Grade 5 (Assistant Secretary) and above G5+
Grade 6 (Senior Principal) G6
Grade 7 (Principal) G7
Deputy Principal DP
Staff Officer SO
Executive Officer I EOI
Executive Officer II EOII
Administrative Officer AO
Administrative Assistant AA

Pay Progression Arrangements of the Pay Systems in the NICS

Non-Industrial Staff
Each non-industrial grade has a pay scale consisting of a minimum pay point, a maximum pay point and a number of fixed pay points in between. Individuals may be paid on any pay point within the pay scale.

The operative date of the annual pay award is 1 August. The reporting year on which the pay award is based is 1 April to 31 March.

Individuals whose performance is deemed as satisfactory and who meet certain eligibility criteria, for example in relation to service during the reporting period, would be eligible for the annual pay award.

NIPS Prison Grades
Prison grades either have pay scales consisting of a minimum pay point, a maximum pay point and a number of fixed pay points in between, or single point rates. The operative date of the annual pay award is 1 April. Progression arrangements are dependent on grade and pay structure.

NIPS Learning and Skills Staff
Teachers within NIPS are paid on a pay scale consisting of a minimum pay point, a maximum pay point and a number of fixed pay points in between. The operative date of the annual pay award is 1 September. Pay scales are increased in reference to Further Education pay scales as determined by the College Employers Forum. Individuals whose performance is deemed as satisfactory and who meet certain eligibility criteria, for example in relation to service during the reporting period, would be eligible for an incremental progression increase.

Industrial Staff
Prior to 2016, the industrial pay system was very different from that of non-industrial staff in that industrial staff were on spot rates of pay rather than pay scales. However over the course of 2016 and 2017, the NICS implemented the outcome of an Industrial Pay and Grading Review, the purpose of which was to simplify and improve the industrial pay system and align it with non-industrial pay.

Industrial staff in the NICS are now classified as Industrial 1, 2, or 3 and are analogous to the non-industrial AA, AO and EO2 grades. Industrial 1 grades are, in the main, unskilled or semi-skilled roles. Industrial 2 grades mainly carry out skilled trades, crafts and supervisory roles, and Industrial 3 grades hold distinct management responsibilities.

As with non-industrial staff, the operative date of the annual pay award is 1 August.