17 February 2011
Local government employees will not be given a pay rise this year, it was announced today.
Local Government Employers rejected claims from trade unions for a pay increase of at least £250 a year on all salary points from April 1. The body said it was unable to offer a rise, which would have added £265m to the sector’s pay bill, because of the £6.5bn funding gap councils face in the next financial year.
Jan Parkinson, managing director of LGE, said: ‘Hard-working council employees help make local government the most efficient part of the public sector. This decision has not been taken lightly. Councils are facing extremely tough choices this year and have to ask their whole workforce to recognise the need to limit spending in all areas.’
Unions reacted angrily, claiming council workers were being hit by rising inflation as well as higher car parking charges at work, increased pension contributions and greater workloads.
Heather Wakefield, head of local government at Unison said: ‘A toxic cocktail of rising cost of living, cuts to terms and conditions, and now frozen pay means council workers are seeing their money vanish before their eyes.’
GMB national secretary Brian Strutton added: ‘GMB members will be sickened by the imposition of another year’s pay freeze. These are some of the lowest paid and hardest working people – home helps, social workers, school, dinner ladies, refuse collectors.’
In the June Budget, Chancellor George Osborne pledged to give all Whitehall civil servants earning under £21,000 a £250 pay boost during the current two-year public sector pay freeze.
The proposition did not include the local government workforce, whose pay negotiations are dealt with by the LGE. It is understood that the offer could not be extended to councils because a far higher proportion of staff are employed on lower wages.
Today’s pay announcement covers 1.4 million local government
employees in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
