Didn't realise that. Thought the whole point of benchmarking was to bring public sector pay into line with the private sector. What the hell does does benchmarking public sector worker against public sector worker acheive? So it's even more rubbish a process than I thought it was. Wow.
People don't understand benchmarking because they never bothered to explain it.
I'm not saying that's the theory but it's the reality. If it was linked to private sector pay then there would be pay freezes and pay cuts, increases in productivity with fewer employees and pay raises based on productivity based in their opposite number in China.