English and Welsh councils are sitting on billions of pounds of unallocated reserves that could be used to avert a damaging strike by 600,000 UNISON local government members this week.
UNISON has uncovered that councils can afford to pay more to their staff without having to go with a begging bowl to the Government or to increase council tax. The secret billions have accumulated largely due to the hard work of UNISON members in delivering “efficiency savings” year on year.
English councils have £11 billion in the bank, of which more than £3 billion is not earmarked for anything. Welsh councils have £372,866,000 in the bank, of which £143,113,000 is unallocated.
UNISON General Secretary, Dave Prentis, said”
“These billions of pounds in the bank, put there by the hard work of hundreds of thousands of low-paid UNISON members, should be used by the employers to settle this potentially damaging dispute. The employers don’t have to go to the Government with a begging bowl or put up council tax or cuts jobs or services or any of those other dire consequences they threaten. They should just face up to the fact that the solution is staring them in the face. Instead of boasting about how efficient councils are, perhaps they should reward the staff who have delivered that.
“No-one wants a strike, but we cannot stand by and see our members’ facing a pay cut because that’s what a 2.45% pay increase means. It’s worth just 20p an hour at the bottom and follows several years of below inflation increases.
“Food, fuel and energy bills are going through the roof and, as everyone knows, they hit the lowest paid the hardest. We are not asking for tanker driver pay increases, but a decent living wage.”
UNISON members in England and Wales and in education boards in Northern Ireland are due to strike for 48 hours this week (16 and 17 July) in protest at the below inflation pay offer.
Non-school reserves in English councils doubled from £5,488,000,000 in 2002 to £11,587,000,000 in April 2007.
Of that: £8 billion is earmarked for various uses but £3,127,000,000 is unallocated. UNISON is arguing that part of that unallocated £3 billion should be used to invest in the staff by improving the pay offer.
Reserves in Welsh council increased from £278,189,000 in 2005 to £372,866,000 in 2007 of which £143,113,000 is not earmarked for anything.
A recent Audit Commission report highlighted severe staff shortages in many councils. Millions are spent each year in paying agency fees to hire temporary staff as a result.
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