Got out of the net

The Prime Minister signed a decree on the transfer of public sector employees to a new wage system

In Russia, the unified tariff schedule (UTS), which determined the salaries of public sector workers, is being abolished, and a new wage system is being introduced. The corresponding government decree was signed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday. As expected, this decision will come into force on December 1 this year.

Thus, the 18-bit wage scale that existed since Soviet times is being abolished , according to which specialists who worked in different industries (but assigned to the same category) were equal in salary. According to the leadership of the Ministry of Health and Social Development, which is responsible for the direct implementation of the reform of the budget salary system, such equalization could hardly be called an adequate way to evaluate the work of workers. The strict linking of wages to the categories of the unified social system led to the fact that the wages of workers in one public sector sector (and especially a small group of specialists or one employee) could not be increased without changing the wages of all public sector employees as a whole. The existence of such a cumbersome system led to the fact that qualified workers left the public sector “for free bread.”

The salary calculation system, which will begin operating on December 1, is based on a more flexible, differentiated approach, which is designed to take into account the specifics of each specific industry and the degree of professional skill of an individual specialist. Now the procedure for determining wages will not be dictated from above, but will be independently determined by management at all levels - from ministries to directors of factories and schools, chief doctors of hospitals, etc. Each ministry is given the right to independently determine “qualification and professional groups” - in other words, to divide workers in their industry depending on the degree of their professional training. Thus, a gradation of the amounts of “basic payments” is introduced.

In addition to the basic ones, two new types of payments are being introduced - compensatory and incentive. Compensation payments (the amount of which will also be different for each individual industry) will make up part of the salary of state employees engaged in heavy work or work with hazardous working conditions. This money will also have to be received by employees working in special climatic conditions, overtime or at night, when combining professions or positions, or when working with information constituting a state secret.

Assigning incentive payments to employees will be the task of lower-level bosses - heads of enterprises and public sector institutions. They themselves must determine exactly how much money their subordinates are entitled to for intensity and effectiveness, for high quality work and for length of service.

Enough money has been allocated for the transition to the new system, the Ministry of Health and Social Development emphasizes. Speaking at a briefing yesterday, the head of the ministry, Tatyana Golikova, recalled that in 2009 the wage fund for federal public sector employees (payroll) will be increased by 30%. Deputy Minister Alexander Safonov converted the interest into a real amount - he explained that the fund’s “piggy bank” would be replenished by at least 110 billion rubles. (now the payroll is approximately 450 billion rubles). This includes an increase in the minimum wage to 4,300 rubles from next year. In future years, the fund “will increase at the rate of inflation,” Mr. Safonov added.

Ms. Golikova, in turn, emphasized that the differentiated system will make the determination of salaries for heads of budgetary institutions more transparent. If now bosses receive “three times the average salary of staff according to the list,” then from December 1, “depending on personal contribution and professional qualities, the manager will be able to receive a salary that is a multiple of up to five times the average salary of the main staff,” added the head of the Ministry of Health and Social Development.

Mikhail MOSHKIN