Project Case Study
Reviewing public sector spending in the United Arab Emirates
Conducting a review of public sector spending, focusing on civil servant salaries
In 2007, we assisted the Ministry of Finance and Industry in the United Arab Emirates to deliver a multi-component project to improve the country’s macro-fiscal performance, by providing advice on public sector spending in general and the salaries of public servants in particular.
Our aim was to review the levels of salary and non-salary benefits that were received by public servants employed at the federal level, with the concrete objective of establishing a working group within the Ministry of Finance to review such benefits and devise a mechanism by which performance awards could be made each year across the various grades of workers.
To that end, we defined the terms of reference for the working group on civil service salaries and supported a review of variations in salary between the federal level of government and those at Emirate level.
Furthermore, we delivered the full awards for salary and non-salary benefits in 2008/09 across all types of state employee and communications material in support of the awards, as well as a detailed formula on which to make future awards from 2010 onward. These efforts were complemented by detailed institutional design work and recommendations to establish a macro-fiscal policy unit for the Ministry of Finance.
