04 May 2007
Cabinet Office ministers have backed down from their hardline stance and will recommence pay discussions with Whitehall's striking civil servants, Public Finance has learnt.
But there is little sign of an end to the dispute that fuelled this year's second national strike by civil servants on May 1.
Ministers and senior Cabinet Office staff are scheduled to meet the Public and Commercial Services trade union on May 21 — ten days after all public sector unions will gather at the Trades Union Congress to discuss co-ordinated opposition to the government's reform agenda.
Health, teaching and nursing unions oppose Chancellor Gordon Brown's 2% annual public sector pay cap, while the PCS has also cited the government's privatisation and more than 100,000 planned job cuts as reasons for continued industrial action.
Until recently, the Cabinet Office said that its ministers would not engage in pay discussions with the PCS while the threat of strikes remained. But Whitehall sources this week said that Pat McFadden, the minister responsible for the civil service, would now meet the PCS.
'It does not help to resolve these issues if industrial action is taking place but… there is a meeting with the PCS on pay scheduled for May 21,' a Cabinet Office spokeswoman said.
Estimates of the number of staff involved in this week's strike varied from PCS claims of up to 200,000 and the Cabinet Office figure of 113,000. But PCS sources said that the union could call a third strike this autumn.
A meeting between the Cabinet Office and the Council of Civil Service Unions, which includes the PCS, on April 27 failed to find a solution, and there is some indication that the unions are split over pay and reform issues.
The FDA, which represents senior Whitehall staff, issued guidance to its members stating: 'The objectives of the [PCS] strike are not clear. There is considerable change in the context of tight budgetary constraints which have an impact on job security and pay. But there is no crisis.'
PFmay2007
