21.03.14
1% pay offer for council workers ‘outrageous’ – Unison
Employers have formally offered council workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who earn more than £14,880 a 1% pay rise this year.
Those who earn lower salaries would receive a “slightly higher” increase.
However, the proposal has sparked anger amongst unions with UNISON calling the offer “outrageous”. The union is now consulting more than 600,000 of its local government and school members over industrial action, following the offer.
Unison says about 50,000 of the lowest-paid local government workers will receive a rise slightly above inflation, but the rest of the workforce – about 90% – will receive just 1%.
The 1% offer from Local Government Employers will apply to more than one million workers including teaching assistants, planners, administrators, social workers and engineers, and will cost £164.65m. It does cover council chief executives, senior officers, teachers or firefighters, who are covered by separate national pay arrangements.
Cllr Sian Timoney, chair of the Employers' Side, said: “There is a broad consensus among councils that there should be a pay offer to staff this year. At a time when local government is tackling the biggest cuts in living memory, this offer balances our commitment to increase the pay of our hardworking employees with the responsibility we have to address the significant financial pressures we face.
“We believe that this is a fair deal for employees, given the limits of what we can afford, and a fair deal for the taxpayers and residents who use and pay for the vital services which local government provides.”
But Unison's head of local government Heather Wakefield said: “It is outrageous that the vast majority of local government workers have effectively been offered another pay cut. Although the long overdue modest rise for the lowest paid workers is welcome, this offer is another slap in the face for local government workers.”
The National Joint Council, which negotiates the pay, terms and conditions of staff working for councils, agrees an annual uplift to the national pay spine, on which each individual council decides where to place its employees. Each council takes into account a number of factors such as job size and local labour market conditions when deciding an employee's salary. There are no nationally-determined jobs or pay grades in local government, unlike in other parts of the public sector.
Chancellor George Osborne said in his budget that pay awards would be limited to 1% in 2015-16 too.
In the Spending Round 2013, the government announced that departments will be putting in place plans to end automatic time-served progression pay in the civil service by 2015-16. "Substantial reform" to progression pay is also underway for teachers, the health service, prisons and police.
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