Prospect have been campaigning on specialist pay. Here at the IPO that takes the form of allowances. This affects a large proportion of our members with many DDaT, Transformation and Patent Examiner colleagues receiving recruitment and retention allowances (RRA) and or scarce skills allowances (SSA). 

Such allowances were originally negotiated to allow the IPO to compete when recruiting specialists. However, although regular pay increases yearly as part of pay negotiations, allowances tend not to, in fact the allowances have not gone up since 2017.  Relative to pay the value of the allowances has diminished over time, however, the value of our expertise which gained us those allowances has not. We believe that allowances should be treated in the same way as pay. The level of inflation seen recently has exacerbated this problem and brought the issue to the fore. 

When The Office makes its pay claim to the Treasury the money they receive will take into account allowances paid out by the office. We believe that that money should be used to raise allowances. We believe that allowances should go up in line with increases to the tops of the spans. 

Pay negotiations between with the union at the IPO will start soon after the Treasury approve The Office's pay claim. We do not think that the board appreciate the strength of feeling on this issue, therefore we are asking you to add your name to the following petition which will be sent to the board asking them to include an increase in allowances in line with pay as part of the pay negotiations.  

You do not have to be a Prospect member to sign the petition and we are asking everyone who receives an allowance to add their name. However, the influence our negotiators have during pay talks is directly proportional to the number of members we have. If you are not currently a union member follow the link below to join or speak to Jorge Quintero about membership. 

On top of the usual member benefits members will also be kept up to date with the progress of the campaign. We always ballot our members on the pay deal after negotiation giving you the opportunity to accept or reject the pay offer.    

If you join Prospect between 6-12 November then your first 3 months membership will be free.