28
June
2013
These job losses have coincided with a three year pay freeze so it really has been a dire time for local government under the coalition says GMB Trade Union.
GMB, the Trade Union for public sector workers, commented on the Spending Review for 2015/16.Brian Strutton, GMB National Secretary for Public Services, said “I predict another 70,000 local council jobs will go in these cuts on top of the 420,000 that have already gone. This will take total number of jobs lost in local government to nearly half a million since the election in 2010. This is more than half of the entire public sector job losses. This has coincided with a three year pay freeze. It really has been a dire time for local government under the coalition.
Council services have already been decimated as a result 26% cuts to local authority budgets and the freeze on council tax. This further reduction will mean the average council having to find another £30m in savings at a time when local communities need more support than ever. Councils are coping by cutting services but they should really be saying 'enough is enough'. Transferring money from other budgets to local councils is a “smoke and mirrors” exercised and does no change these cuts which are down 10% on a like for like basis.
Things like the £10bn backlog of pothole repairs blighting our roads and the £20bn funding gap for care for the elderly. This means the elderly are left to struggle isolated at home with fewer services or put in chronically underfunded care homes. These are the legacy of council cuts and there are many more examples.
The Chancellors sideswipe at public sector workers by questioning their pay progression also reveals a lack of understanding about pay systems.
People begin at a starter rate of pay and through experience progress to the rate for the job, typically after five years. If anything, public sector workers are actually underpaid for too long and should accelerate much more quickly to the rate for the job. Furthermore, performance related pay systems have been widely shown not to work.
This is just another unpleasant dig at public sector workers who have already been made scapegoats for problems they had nothing to do with.”
