- Conference
- 2025 Local Government Service Group Conference
- Date
- 17 February 2025
- Decision
- Carried
Everyday council workers in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England go to work knowing they cannot provide the level and quality of service they would wish because the deep spending cuts since 2010 make that impossible.
Each local authority continues to grapple with an absolutely dire financial situation and core services are likely to be impacted. It doesn’t have to be like this.
According to the Wales Local Government Association, local authorities in Cymru face a deficit of £559m for 2025/26, not including cost pressures caused by the changes to National Insurance in the UK budget for commissioned social care providers. 14,000 jobs are threatened this year, on top of the 34,000 that have been axed since 2010. This deficit will continue for 2026/7 and in all likelihood 2027/28. No Welsh council has yet gone bankrupt, but there is a feeling it is only a matter of time.
Authorities respond proposing huge council tax increases during a cost-of-living crisis, but even these would not deliver high quality services, such is the enormous shortfall in funding.
The £253m boost Welsh authorities received as part of the UK Government budget was less than half of the funding required to meet the shortfall for 2025/26.
As dedicated public service workers, we know investment in libraries and leisure facilities, in youth clubs, schools, day centres, adult and children’s social care, social work and all those other vital services make our communities, happier, healthier and more equal places to live – and keep people out of an overstretched NHS.
Many of us are doing the jobs of two or even three people and we’re burnt out. Severe spending cuts and pay freezes didn’t need to happen. They were a political choice.
We have every right to demand investment in world-class public services and investment in public service workers.
Conference recognises educating the public about the value of local services and winning their support is critical to securing the investment we need. It is essential UNISON thinks of innovative ways to promote services building on the success of ‘everyday action heroes.’
Conference notes UNISON Cymru is developing a report on how austerity has damaged Wales and that it will be used to highlight to politicians how people are suffering.
Conference recognises only significant and sustained funding can undo the harm of 14 years of austerity and therefore calls on the Service Group Executive to:
1) Campaign for the UK Government to better fund local authorities in England and (with Barnett consequential money), the governments of Wales and Scotland, and the Northern Ireland Executive, to provide services to the quality the public needs;
2) Campaign for fully funded future pay awards for local authority employees;
3) Develop a broad-based public relations campaign promoting everything the local council workforce provides, similar to the ‘everyday action heroes’ which drew on a range of creative expertise.
