The sixth stakeholders’ meeting to discuss a Draft Public Sector Pay Policy― the Single Spine Pay Policy (SSPP) ― for Ghana has been held in Accra. The meeting, which took place yesterday, was held under the auspices of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC). In a presentation on the Draft Policy, Mr. John Amankrah , a Director at the FWSC, said the policy will apply to all public service institutions under Article 190 of the 1992 constitution. These institutions include the Civil Service, Judicial Service, Audit Service, Education Service, Prisons Service, Parliamentary Service, Health Service and the Statistical Service. The others are the National Fire Service, Customs, Excise and Preventive Service, Internal Revenue Service, Health Service, Police Service, Immigration Service and the Legal Service. The rest are the Local Government Service, Public Corporations other than those set up as commercial ventures, Public Services established by the Constitution and such other Public Services as Parliament may, by law, prescribe. The key components of the policy included processes for measuring the relative value of jobs in all the public services, appraisal systems to measure the performance of individual job holders in the Public Service; grading and salary structures for relating pay and benefits to the value of jobs in the Public Service; schemes for providing rewards and incentives according to individual, group or organisational performance and the assessment of what is both practical and sustainable in terms of budgetary resources. Mr. Amankrah said, in developing the Single Spine Grading Structure, the public sector was grouped into nine service classifications based on their similarity in terms of requirements for education, skills and training to perform their duties. These classifications are Public Policy, Planning, Service, Administration and Related Services including Local Government Service; Health Services; Education (Non-Tertiary); Education (Tertiary), Science and Research; Revenue and Accounting Services; Security Services; Legal and Judicial Services; Subvented (Commercial & Non-commercial) Organisations and Regulators. Mr. Amankrah added that these service classifications will be maintained in so far as they are relevant for purposes of job evaluation, grading, career planning, pay administration and negotiation of conditions of service and benefits. He noted that just as all new systems, there are bound to be challenges with implementation, and that the FWSC will set up mechanism for resolving all initial complaints within 18 months of the launch of the policy. Source: ISD (G.D. Zaney)