Solihull Council met on 1st March 2011 and set the budget of £148m for
2011-12, cutting the budget by £15m. This is over 10% of the budget and
follows a cut of 14.3% in the Government’s grant to the Council. The cuts
are a direct consequence of the policies of the Con-Dem Government to
reduce public spending.
While the Council leadership ruled out a programme of compulsory
redundancies for 2011-12 it has not ruled out the possibility of some
compulsory redundancies ‘as a last resort’. At the Budget setting Council
Cllr.Hedley, Leader of the Council, warned ‘I cannot guarantee that there
will not be job loses.’ UNISON is aware there will also be additional post
deletions this year, while there is no post holder there remain
consequences for services and remaining workers through the loss of these
jobs.
The Council already knows its Grant settlement for 2012-13 and is expecting
to make further cuts of £11.8m in March 2012. Cuts are expected in
following years with an overall cut of 25% being made from the Council’s
budget by 2013-14. The use of compulsory redundancies to achieve cuts
has not so far been ruled out for future years.
£15m budget cut
Pressures for the year ahead
from the President
UNISON’s challenge has been to go through a vast amount of information
to understand what these cuts mean for us as workers and for the
services we provide. The details of many of the cuts and savings proposals
are still being worked out. This bulletin is our first attempt at explaining
how these cuts will affect the workforce as whole and specific services.
Inside This Issue
1 £15m budget cut
2 Undermining terms and
conditions
2 Pay freeze
3 Lean cuts
3 UNISON’s response
4 No Cuts, No Cover resolution
‘I cannot guarantee that there will not be job loses.’
Solihull UNISON Cuts Bulletin No 1
March 2011
Page 2
CUTS BULLETIN NO 1
When the Council voted on the budget they imposed a cut of £347k
from the mileage budget through the imposition of the 40p per mile
rate upon all car drivers and the abolition of the banded lump-sum
scheme for essential car drivers. With the rapid increase in petrol
prices this measure will hit essential car drivers very hard, we
estimate that they will on average loss £500 per year. Senior
Management ended negotiations by e-mail. We are in dispute with
our Employer.
UNISON has recently discovered that there is to be an attempt to
toughen the criteria for the award of increments and it is proposed
that our targets should be tied to achieving efficiency savings. Our
concern that this is an attempt cut by stealth the £1m bill for the
award of increments. In the second of the pay freeze the award
annual increments having become even more important for workers
at a time of rising inflation.
Undermining local terms and conditions
Get on the bus!
Coaches leave Keepers Lodge at
7.45pm and Union Road at 8.15am on
Saturday 26th March
Free to UNISON members and family
members.
Phone 704 6048 or e-mail
[email protected] to book your
seat
‘Essential car
drivers will be
£500 worse off
under the new
scheme.’
Doing more with less!
UNISON believes that all workers on the frontline will have to work harder
by doing ‘more with less’. We are aware that most Managers have had
significant increase in workloads with increasing spans of management.
UNISON has raised particular concerns that some highly pressured frontline
services such as Children’s Social Work services are still having their budget
cut by £600k although there has been a 23% increase in workload in recent
years with no corresponding increase in staffing.
We are concerned that this has potentially serious consequences for the
health and safety of staff, and in particular increased incidence of work
related stress. This situation is likely to continue and intensify in the years
ahead.
Pay freeze and Pension contributions increase
The other big cut affecting us all is the announcement of a second year
of the pay freeze for 2011-12 by Local Government employers for all
Council workers. The Council will pocket a further £126k at our expense.
This at a time of increasing inflation, the RPI stands at 5.1% and CPI at
4%, which will in all likelihood lead to an increase in interest rates later
in 2011.
The Hutton Commission on public sector pensions will report in the
spring and will recommend significant increase in our pension’s
contributions. We are directly paying for the cuts by systematic
reductions in our real incomes.
PAGE 3 CUTS BULLETIN 1
Lean cuts
Targeted cuts in services
Some services have been targeted with a disproportionate level of cut. The
service supporting unaccompanied asylum seeking children is to be cut by 15%
following a cut in funding from the United Kingdom Borders Agency. The
service will hit by the largest single cut of £1.2m. Higher caseloads for workers
and a reduced and ‘second tier’ service to care leavers from this group are
being proposed. Cuts and savings of 15% have also been identified for the
Youth service.
Contact us:
Solihull UNISON
by phone on 704 6048
Find us on the web
www.solihullunison.co.uk
and find our Solihull UNISON
Facebook group
Lean cuts
UNISON raised concerns about Lean with the Leaders of the main Political
Groups on the Council. We wrote: The Lean Team and Lean Review process is
being used to drive through significant savings this coming year. There need
to be effective checks to the lean review process. UNISON remains concerned
that some identified lean savings are not viable and have been hung round the
neck of a particular service and will have to be achieved one way or another.
We are concerned that the Lean reviews might lead to the possible loss of
posts in the future and that the Lean Team is driven to achieving it’s own
savings targets through lean reviewing other services.
Solihull UNISON’s response:
UNISON with the GMB wrote to Cabinet members before the Cabinet Meeting in February to detail
our concerns about specific cuts and savings for jobs and services. Immediately before the March
Council meeting we followed this up with a letter to the leaders of the main Political Groups making
demands on how they should protect frontline services. (Go to our website to see our written
responses www.solihullunison.co.uk)
UNISON’s approach to the cuts is twofold. We are committed to publicly campaigning to explain the
impact and social costs of the cuts. We are asking members to join us in London on 26th March to
show our opposition to the Con-Dem Government’s cuts. Within the Council, our priority is to
defend the terms and conditions of our members and to protect our working conditions.
At our Annual General meeting, we passed a resolution on No Cuts, No Cover. This calls for
members to take workplace based action to highlight the workload and to protect their working
conditions. UNISON is a membership led union, if we are to protect our working conditions you
need to take action. We need you to take two simple steps. Firstly, can you organize a meeting in
your workplace with other UNISON members to talk about the cuts and what it means for your
service and your work? Secondly, if you haven’t UNISON Workplace representative, elect one.
By getting organized workplace by workplace we can make a difference. We may be fighting
significant compulsory redundancies in 2012.
Page 2
CUTS BULLETIN NO 1
Motion on ‘No Cuts No Cover’
This AGM of Solihull Local Government Branch notes:
1. Working people in this country and across the world are paying the price of bailing out the Banks. The public cost of
intervening in the global financial crisis is equivalent to the cost of $1400 for every person in the world. (source: Robert
Peston, Business Correspondent of the BBC)
2. In the United Kingdom ‘As of June 2009 the cost to the public of bailing out the bankers: £850 Billion.’ (source: Andrew
Grice, The Independent, 4th December 2009)
3. That large scale cuts in public spending will probably push the economy back into recession pushing up unemployment
and reducing the tax base to bring down the deficit. There is no evidence that by cutting public spending and public
sector jobs that this will spur private sector growth and employment.
4. That public spending cuts are an attack on the social wage and will have a disproportionate impact upon women and
children. The cuts are inherently unfair.
5. The Con-Dem Government is using the deficit as a political opportunity to attack the public provision of services; it is
proposing a further a wave of privatization.
This AGM further notes
6. The cut of over 14.3% of the Government’s grant to Solihull Council for 2011-12. This is the first of three years of cuts.
7. The decision of Solihull MBC not to introduce a programme of compulsory redundancies as a method of managing the
Councils’ budget this year. The cuts to the Council’s budget will result in some redundancies.
8. The budget proposals include the deletion of a significant number of posts. This follows a reduction in the staffing
establishments in some Departments in previous years.
9. Management will pressurize remaining workers to cover the work for deleted posts and frozen posts.
10. In many workplaces there will be more work with fewer people and resources to do that work. This has implications for
our health and safety as we work harder and more intensely. This situation is likely to continue and intensify in the years
ahead
This AGM resolves that the Branch should:
1. Publically campaign against cuts in Council and all public services including supporting the TUC March for the
Alternative on 26th March 2011.
2. To effectively publicize the effects of cuts in Council services to the wider public of Solihull.
3. To develop campaigns to defend specific Council services under threat making links with service users and people in the
community.
4. That this Branch develop a strategy of ‘No Cuts, No Cover’ to enable workers to defend their working conditions. This
strategy would involve the following:
a) To monitor the impact of job freezes and post deletions in workplaces.
b) To hold workplace meetings with members concerned about workloads and the impact of lost and frozen posts.
c) To support the members to take action to highlight the workload and to protect their working conditions.
d) To publicize the ‘No Cuts, No Cover’ campaign amongst the wider membership and to challenge the lie that ‘we
are all in this together’.
e) To ensure ‘No Cuts No Cover’ as a standing item on the agenda of all Branch meetings.