SCOTLAND'S prison officers are to receive a controversial £2,000 bonus payment over the next 12 months despite the majority of public sector workers looking at one per cent in salary rises.

The Sunday Herald has obtained an email from prison chiefs stating the payment was for "significant changes to the role of prison officers" caused by reforms to the service.

However, the deal was met with anger and criticism by a union whose members are subject to the Scottish government's one per cent cap on those earning more than £22,000, and a maximum increase of £400 for those on lower salaries.

The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), the UK’s largest civil service trade union, said prison officers deserved a pay increase, but claimed it was wrong that the rest of the public sector workforce had not been made a similar offer.

A £2,000 lump sum was handed to prison officers in 2015 in a similarly controversial deal with the Prison Officers Association (POA) that angered other unions.

Justice secretary Michael Matheson told MSPs in March 2015 that the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) had decided "the one-off payment for prison officers is made in recognition of a specific set of circumstances unique to their frontline role".

However, the SPS has now agreed to pay its prison officers £1,000 in spring 2017 and the same amount next year.

The PCS said ministers needed to explain why prison officers were treated as as an "exceptional" case but other public sector workers were not. National officer Lynn Henderson said, “Time and again public sector workers are told that pay restraint is the cost of saving jobs and that the one per cent pay cap cannot be breached, that it’s simply a burden they have to bear.

"Yet once again Scottish Ministers appear to pick and choose which workers are exempt. A second substantial award only for prison officers is way above the cap for the rest of the public sector, despite a parliamentary commitment in 2015 that this was a 'one off'.

"First of all, finance secretary Derek Mackay needs to explain to other Scottish Prison Service staff why prison officers are exceptional but other prison workers are not. Then he must explain to his own staff in the Scottish government why he won’t pay up for them.

"Prison officers deserve fair pay, but so does every public sector worker whose pay has been squeezed and dropped in real terms since 2010.”

Labour MSP Neil Findlay, echoing the PCS, said: "Congratulations to any public sector union that secures improvements in terms and conditions for its members during a period of Tory and SNP austerity.

"However, we need a pay increase across the public sector and I'm sure that NHS and local government workers and others will be seeking a similar deal."

Details of the pay deal for the POA were revealed in an email from Eric Murch, director of corporate change at the SPS.

Murch stated that the extra payment had been made because prison officers had had to accept changes to their role over a longer period of time than had initially been expected.

He said: "Recognising this, the cabinet secretary has agreed to make a further payment of £1,000 to prison officers in bands C-E in the spring of this year to recognise their continued commitment to the delivery of our new model."

"As we currently expect that it will take more than one year to finalise these arrangements, a further sum of £1000 will be paid in the spring of 2018, subject to progress and continuing commitment. We anticipate significant changes to the role of prison officers which will demand a degree of flexibility and willingness to adapt to new working arrangements. These payments are in recognition of prison officers' continuing engagement to delivering this."

An Scottish Prison Service spokesperson, in response to the PCS criticism, added: "We've made very clear that the payment is in recognition of prison officers' commitment to the change process."

A Scottish government spokesperson said: “The SPS is working on a new operating model which will deliver a modernised prison service, responding to the changing demands of Scotland’s justice system. Frontline prison officers will be disproportionately affected in the transition to the new model, which will see considerable changes to the way they do their job, and mean they will need to learn new skills.

"These payments recognise the continued commitment of these officers to these new ways of working."

The Sunday Herald made a number of attempts to contact the Prison Officer Association Scotland but received no response.