Back down there on the 'Diane Abbot ...' post MW asked 'Garageband loops' in the comments to elaborate on the £9,000 salary cuts he mentioned his mate at the council was sufferring. He hasn't replied, but I think I can safely say what is happening here. It is quite topical too.
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Councils have to use 'Single status NJC' payscales, which are negotiated with the likes of Unison, who think it's wonderful. Many moons ago, 'single status' was all about making pay more 'equal' between 'blue collar' and 'white collar' council jobs. Now it's all about the 'gender pay gap' which the likes of Unison are convinced still exist.
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Council's can't just advertise jobs at what they believe to be market rates, they have to go through a long and bureaucratic process of 'job evaluation' and 'grading reviews'. Some councils have decided that there is a 'gender pay gap' after all, so because they can't afford to just hand out loads of big pay increases, are cutting people's pay to make them all equal. This has been going on for years. These are not 'government cuts', they are 'Unison cuts'.
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As for the 'government cuts'. If you actually read the budget, current spending minus debt interest is set to rise by between 1% and 2% every year. The big cuts you are hearing about (like at Birmingham City Council) are because some councils have been racking up debts since 2004 when Gordon relaxed their borrowing rules. Now is a convenient time for Chief Execs to lay people off as Osborne will get the blame.
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"The huge debt, compiled since a Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition ousted Labour in 2004, is equivalent to £2,000 for every person in Birmingham, according to new figures published today ... By comparison, council debt in Manchester works out at just under £1,500 per head, in Nottingham it is less than £1,000 and just over £500 in Bristol and Sheffield."
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But none of it is that bigger issue anyway, because if you look at the latest (2009) figures on the demographics of councils, 20% of them are over 55 anyway and can't wait to get pensioned off. Of course Unison won't tell you this, they are more interested in trying to overthrow the coalition and restore their beloved Labour Party to power.
6 comments:
The fact that it was a Tory-Lib Dem council in Birmingham is ultra-chucklesome. Isn't 20% of over 55s fairly normal for the workforce as a whole?
In any event, I have come to the belated conclusion that the six million public sector workers (cost to taxpayer £169 billion per annum) aren't really the biggest problem (it's like a glorified welfare system). The biggest problem is the £281 billion per annum that the government spends on 'outsourcing' to private companies.
Ah, but the 55+ workers in the private sector don't all get the cushy redundancy/early retirement package they do in the public sector.
Whether the £169b workers are a problem depends on your point of view. If you take the Milton Friedman 'Thank God for government waste' view then most of them aren't doing too much damage.
There are some funny procurement practices. We have to buy all our train tickets through Coop travel for instance, who charge us more than full price at the ticket shop even when we book weeks in advance.
Some of the temping agencies are worth looking at too. I know someone who offered to work for a council as a self-employed temp on £25/h but was told he had to go through an agency who billed £36/h and gave him £30/h.
The unions could probably win arguments on PFI and private consultants etc now, but they are too busy trying to overthrow the coalition (and too stupid to notice).
SL: " If you take the Milton Friedman 'Thank God for government waste' view then most of them aren't doing too much damage."
I have found that whatever I ever think up, Milton Friedman had already said it years ago. Like I say, it's largely glorified welfare.
"The unions could probably win arguments on PFI and private consultants etc now, but they are too busy trying to overthrow the coalition (and too stupid to notice)."
Indeed. I only realised this recently. The formula has to be cut £1.66 private sector procurement for every £1 cut in public sector pay.
The fact that the Govt are cutting back on public sector jobs and not money paid to private enterprise shows two things, to my mind:
1) many of the public sector jobs were simply makework facilitator and coordinator types of jobs instituted by Labour to make the figures look good and
2) the politicians in the Govt and the senior civil servants don't want to upset the organisations that lie beyond the "revolving door". Where would all their nice non-exec directorships be then?
B:
1) Agreed.
2) Agreed.
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