Responding to the Welsh local government budget settlements announced today, Dominic MacAskill, UNISON Cymru/Wales head of local government and staff side secretary of the Joint Council for Wales*, said:
“We cannot underestimate the challenge that local government and the local government workforce will face as a result of these budgets.
“We have already seen local authorities shed 8,000 jobs throughout Wales over the last three years through redundancies and by leaving vacant posts unfilled.
“Communities haven’t felt the impact of those job losses because the workforce has absorbed the work of these posts by becoming more productive.
“On top of this, local government workers have basically subsidised local services through hits to their pay, terms and conditions.
“The workforce has nothing left to sacrifice and so a further raid on their terms and conditions is off the cards.
“With budget proposals as they stand, we look set to lose a further 25,000 members of local government staff over the next three years and this will undeniably have a detrimental impact on service provisions and local economies.
“The Joint Council for Wales will meet this Friday** for the first time since the budget proposals and will be our first chance to discuss the situation with councillors and HR leaders.
“What I will say at this point is that the trade unions will be calling for no compulsory redundancies, and we will also be laying out a six point plan at the meeting to outline how we should now face the future.
“Part of the plan will call on each local authority to set out a ‘parallel’’ budget that details the actual expenditure required to meet the needs of the local community.
“Through that process, we can at least be clear about the state of play and we can take a realistic view about what the future holds.”
