STATES Members should get a 2.5 per cent pay rise every year until 2008, according to the Remuneration Review Body.

But they are recommending a freeze on the £3,650 expense allowance.

If no States Member lodges a proposition on pay within the next month, the proposals will come into force, earning Members a total of £41,136 next year, £42,072 in 2007 and £43,032 in 2008.

After 2008, a new Remuneration Review Body will be set up to look at pay issues again.

This panel, led by Julian Rogers and including Brian Bullock, Philip Barber, Matther Braid and Bob Gaiger, said that questions about pensions, progressive pay for experience or responsibility and severance pay – which will become a legal entitlement for Jersey employees some time after 2007 – had been held over.

Mr Rogers said that they had a ‘far from open hand’ because they had to work within strict terms of reference, and were barred by an amendment to Standing Orders proposed by Senator Stuart Syvret that meant that all States Members had to earn the same amount.