In his Big Budget this week, the Chancellor announced a two-year pay freeze for public sector workers from 2011-2012. However, with uncharacteristic magnanimity, he also said that those earning £21,000 or less would receive an increase of at least £250 a year – about enough to buy five rolls of Osborne and Little’s cheapest wallpaper or perhaps pay one quarterly fuel bill – and an increase of £3,000 in the £18,000 threshold they were talking about before the election.
Civil servants, who have yet to negotiate a pay deal this year, will have their pay frozen in 2010-2011, except for those earning less than £21,000, who will receive the whopping £250 immediately and 'will then exit the pay freeze ahead of other groups'.
The Big Pay Chill will apparently save £3.3 billion by 2014 – 2015, although I imagine that no-one’s expecting civil servants, nurses, teachers, police support staff or probation officers to freeze their efforts to raise standards, increase productivity or embrace the Big Society for the next four years.
We in local government , the poor pelations of the public sector, had already had a pay freeze imposed on us from 1 April this year of course, so no big news there. Without as much as the courtesy of a meeting, the elected members on the employers side sent a message via their officers in February to say that an increase for the lowest paid group of workers within the public sector was ‘unaffordable’.
Imagine our excitement then when the Chancellor seemed to offer some mitigation for the real reduction in earnings our members face as a consequence of current 5% inflation rates! Alas, it was not to be.
Yesterday, in response to pressure from UNISON, the National Employers’ Organisation for Local Government Services issued a statement to councils saying: '...we can confirm that the announcement does not affect: local government pay for 2010/11, where the position remains that the employers have not offered an increase, or contractual annual increments, which should continue to be paid. Ahead of any negotiations on local government pay for 2011/12 we shall be consulting councils in the usual way through regional pay briefings'.
So, on the day the teachers’ pay award of 2.3 % from September 2010 was quite rightly confirmed by the same Local Government Employers, our members get zilch.
Let’s take a look at what this means for someone near you who might be helping to ‘re-enable’ your mum or dad, perhaps support your child’s teacher (or even teach him/her when the teacher’s not available), keep urban foxes at bay or perhaps even rescue you next time there are floods or snow storms.... The bottom rate in local government is the lowest in the public sector by some measure – currently £12,145 – that’s £6.30 pence an hour to you. The £250 increase would amount to a 2.06% rise for the 100,000 workers languishing on that bottom rate – way below inflation.
There are around 200,000 council employees – mostly part-time women workers - earning less than £12,500 a year (full time equivalent) and median earnings are almost £4000 a year lower than the economy average. A whopping 67% of the NJC workforce fall below the £21,000 threshold – a sure sign of the below-inflation pay increases our members have received over the last few years and the disregard councils have for our members’ efforts. Annual leave, maternity rights and other conditions are worse than the NHS and other equivalents. Not sure where the gold plate is to be found there. It would take some serious digging to find it!
This ‘unaffordability’ business is a bit mysterious too. In April this year, UNISON sent a Freedom of Information request to all 401 councils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland asking them what assumptions they had made about the percentage increase in pay from April 2010 for all groups of local government workers (except teachers and related professionals). Interestingly, in these times of avowed ‘transparency’ in local government spending, the Local Government Employers sought to frustrate our FOI request by circulating advice on the use of ‘exemptions’ to councils.
Fortunately, most of them wisely ignored it and here are the results from 280 councils...59% said that they had assumed there would be a pay rise in 2010/2011 and in every region except the West Midlands and the South East. Increases from 0.2 to 2.2% were included in budgets, the most frequent assumption being 1%. Of the 40% who assumed there would be no increase this year, a number had nonetheless made provision for a pay award in the contingency sum in their budget or had significantly increased the contingency sum compared to the previous year.
We also asked councils about the pay assumptions being built into their Medium Term Financial Plans for 2011/12 and 2012/13. Excluding Northern Ireland, only 21% were planning for a pay freeze in 2011 and fewer than 10% in 2012. An assumption of 1% or more was built into most plans for both years. So what’s with the ‘unaffordable’?
Of course many councils have self-inflicted serious revenue reductions through Council Tax freezes or cuts over the last two years. The handful of coppers that this will save tax payers pales into insignificance against the holes blown in council budgets. There’s also the LGA’s proud boast of having made 50% more ‘efficiency’ savings in the last CSR period than required by Westminster. But the employers have clearly told us one big porkie in saying that councils did not want and could not afford a pay rise.
And then there are our members who have to suffer the consequences. No-one can even start to kid themselves that they are less worthy of a pay increase of £250 this year than civil servants or the 2.3% that teachers they work alongside will be getting. It’s time to ask how much longer can the excuse of local democracy mean impoverishment for the people who do what the good burghers of the council chamber ask them to.
If we are ‘all in this together’, then that goes for public sector workers too. If the Government doesn’t step in and ensure that our members don’t fall even further behind their ‘Total Place’ colleagues than they are already, then they can expect a frozen look next time they talk (if they can spare us the time) about working together in the difficult times ahead. One wit described them as ‘Cami-Nickers’ at our Local Government Conference last week. If they don’t sort this one out, it will be ‘pants’ indeed.
Heather Wakefield is head of local government at Unison
