Finance

The Single Spine Salary Structure

Single spine pay structure simply means having a single pay plan whereby employees in the same pay scale are paid equally.

In 1997, the government of Ghana decided to address gaping disparities that had emerged between the pay of civil servants and those in the wider public sector. A nationwide job evaluation exercise was undertaken and a new grading and salary structure was developed to create equity and it was called The Single Spine Pay Policy.

The new Single Spine Pay Policy came into effect from January 2010, aimed at motivating public service workers to improve service delivery and productivity. The Single Spine Pay Policy places all public service employees on a single vertical salary structure called the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).

The salary structure was to ensure that jobs within the same value range were paid within the same pay range, adding that, placement of the single spine salary structure would be done on the basis of grade structure constructed from the job evaluation exercise. This new and improved pay structure came about as a result of consultation between government, Fair Wages and Salaries Commission and the unions. The rationale for the single spine salary structure is to remove inequities and distortions in public service pay administration in order to achieve ‘‘equal pay for work of equal worth’’ as enshrined in Article 24(1) of the 1992 constitution of Ghana, section 10(b) of the labor Act, 2003(Act 651).

Incremental implementation of the new pay policy started in July 1st, 2010 as stated above and by September 2011, about 69%(44 institutions) of the 520,000 public sector employees have been migrated onto the salary structure. Currently about 98% of all public service employees have been placed on the salary structure according to the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission. The single spine salary structure has got both positive and negative implications on the Ghanaian economy.

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