The salary of civil servants is organised into
grades, with employees also being entitled to bonuses. The salary of
Members of Parliament (MPs),
Cabinet ministers, judges, the attorney-general, speaker, and auditor general are also based upon this scale. Salary grades generally begin with one or two letters, and end with a corresponding number. The top civil service grades are grades 1 to 4, upon which ministerial salary is also pegged. Civil servants comprise four divisions: I (administrative and professional); II (management executives (MX)); III (Technical Support Scheme, Corporate Support Scheme, and Management Support Scheme); and IV (the Operations Support Scheme (OSS): manual workers and other
unskilled labour). Division I employees are divided into Staff, Superscale and Timescale grades, in order of seniority, with superscale employees consisting of
permanent secretaries and directors as well as their deputies. In 2017, the formal divisional categories were abolished. For most civil servants, the pay scale consists of ranges rather than specific fixed salaries, and the actual salaries of civil servants can vary widely depending on performance and other factors. The government's official policy is to keep public and political office salaries in line with industry standards. The government last conducted a review of political officeholder salaries in 2017, where it rejected the suggestions of an independent committee to increase the salary ranges, instead opting to keep the ranges as they were in 2011. In the 2011 review of governmental salaries, the government excluded public servants from their final report, instead keeping the salary bands of civil servants at the same level as the 2007 report. Member of Parliament
Denise Phua noted that with the exclusion of the administrative service (the highest level of leadership in the civil service) from the review, it is possible that some civil servants earn more than their Ministers. In 2022, the government increased the salaries of top public servants by 5 to 12% from the 2007 report. Staff Grade IV, and above Staff Grade IV. Legal service officers have been previously pegged to judicial salaries and those of private practice lawyers. The salaries of high-ranking civil servants in Singapore are some of the highest in the world. This has led to some criticisms towards the government for overpaying its employees or crowding out the private sector and reducing the number of highly talented citizens within the
private sector. In response, the government has maintained that a high pay is necessary to prevent
corruption,
staff attrition, and the
influence of outside money in the public service, as well as to attract and retain talent from the private sector. ==Code of conduct==