Cuts to Jobs, Pay and Services

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Conference
2010 Police and Justice Service Group Conference
Date
24 June 2010
Decision
Carried

Conference is appalled by both the speed and the scale of cuts that have already taken place and the extent of cutbacks that are being built into future expenditure plans by police authorities across England and Wales. This includes unnecessary and damaging plans by all political parties to freeze or cut Council Tax, with disastrous implications for jobs and services and very little benefit to individual households.

Our members and the public are being asked to pay the price for bankers’ greed, imprudent investments by some police authorities and the failure of the financial system. The recession is being used as a smokescreen by the Government for the most serious attack on local services, pay, terms and conditions and trade union organisation in a generation.

Making police staff redundant not only has disastrous consequences for individuals and their families, it results in a loss of skills to the public sector and wastes public investment in the training and development of police authority employees. It also deprives local economies of revenue through reduced spending power of police staff.

Conference believes that:

1)High quality police services are the hallmark of a decent society;

2)Police staff jobs are vital to local economies;

3)Investment in local public services and jobs is socially necessary during and beyond the recession. It is an essential ingredient of economic recovery and underpins local economies.

This Conference therefore calls on the Service Group Executive to:

a)Continue to campaign for well resourced, directly provided high quality police services and jobs through well-argued national and local campaigns;

b)Continue to campaign against cuts in local services, job losses and redundancies and attacks on our members’ terms and conditions;

c)Develop materials and training courses which enable branches and regions to understand and negotiate over police authorities budget plans and to develop alternatives to cuts and redundancies;

d)Work with others to change the media-created negative perception of police civilian staff, by describing the vital roles carried out by police staff in both operational and support areas;

e)Defend the support functions on which operational policing relies for its effectiveness;

f)Work with Policy and Public Affairs and others to influence the outcome of next Spending Review;

g)Support Regions in developing strategies for tackling budget reductions;

h)Provide support for branches and Regions campaigning against cuts or job losses including, if necessary, rallies, marches and industrial action in accordance with UNISON’s rules.