Shropshire Council rejects union’s alternative budget
Thursday 21st July 2011, 4:47PM BST.
Shropshire Council chiefs today poured cold water over alternative budget proposals put forward by union bosses which they claim would avoid pay cuts for staff.
Unison has published a document which outlines five ways in which the authority could raise extra cash, including a 1.5 per cent increase in council tax instead of the freeze proposed by the council.
But Shropshire Council chief executive Kim Ryley today claimed the ideas had already been discussed and discounted by the authority.
It comes after staff received a letter from Mr Ryley informing them they were to be made redundant on September 30. They would be rehired the next day, but only if they agree to a 5.4 per cent pay cut.
Unison branch secretary Alan James unveiled the alternative budget after claiming staff morale was at rock bottom.
But Mr Ryley said today: “These points have already been considered by the council as part of the budget process.
“We have been talking to Unison since last autumn and it’s questionable why they have left it until now to come up with some alternatives rather than bringing them to the table during those discussions.”
Mr James said the council was embarking on a “crude” attempt to transfer public services to the private sector in the hope a “Big Society” would emerge to look after the most vulnerable.
Other suggestions in the union document include using income from population growth, additional money received for housing, selling off council assets and exploring alternative ways of saving money.
The new document has been circulated today to town and parish councils, community and voluntary groups and members of the public urging them to lobby council leader Keith Barrow to rescind the dismissal letter and return to talks.
Mr James said: “Staff are working in an environment of fear, intimidation, worry and anger. Staff morale is at rock bottom.
“We believe the council has embarked on a crazy plan to dismantle public services in the county and our members are the ones that will be the first to pay the price.
“However, it will be the residents of a Shropshire that suffer in the long term and the most vulnerable who will be hardest hit.”
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There you go all you people backing the unions, their proposal was that you pay more council tax!
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The alternative union idea was great , only problem was it cost every other non ps worker more money.
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We have the highest rate of inflation currently that we’ve seen for quite a few years. Against such a background, it seems reasonable to me that in order to retain services, we might expect to see small rises in council tax.
We’ve recently seen utility companies increasing their costs far in excess of inflation – yet we see no clamour from those who wish to blame relatively low-paid workers for them to cut the pay of their workers to avoid increasing our electricity and gas bills.
Given that, why are so many of you so keen to see the pay of council staff reduced to avoid an increase in your council tax? – it’s not their fault the bankers damaged our economy is it? I can understand that you might be concerned about increasing council tax – but don’t take it out on the employees – they pay council tax too!
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Looks like a done deal then,Mr Ryley please lead by example and take a pay cut yourself.
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well what a shock! The council have no intention of revising their changes to terms and conditions because what this is all about is making services more appealing to private companies to come in and take over. Council bosses have already met with private companies to start this process….
Also, whilst they may save 7.2 million by making these changes they are, this year alone, putting 10 million into their “reserve” fund. Ethically this is all wrong. Taking money from the workers and putting it in a reserve fund – what for? a rainy day when we are facing a crisis – this is the crisis!!! although those on the higher wages have NO idea what pay cuts like this actually mean in reality for staff, nor are they interested.
The council state that the changes to terms and conditions must be made or 500 jobs will go! Firstly, they can’t afford to make 500 people redundant and they have no intention of doing this, and secondly in the past 12 months they have already made 350 posts redundant anyway. They are going to cut posts whether these terms and conditions come in or not.
The impact of this is that people will be in financial hardship, probably better of not working! and certainly will not have any spare money to put into the local economy. So who suffers – well we will we, not just the council workers who have these pay cuts imposed on them and bullied into submission, but all the businesses locally who will go out of business because people wont have money to spend.
Unfortunately until we have a change to the council leadership and political leaders in this county things are only set to get worse.
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Thank you Kim, from a hard pressed rate payer.
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More rubbish from the BT share lover
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Please explain.
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“Staff are working in an environment of fear, intimidation, worry and anger. Staff morale is at rock bottom”.
This I think is an understatement. Management do not listen to staff concerns, all we get from them is if we don’t accept the new terms there will be 500 made redundant.Well the council plan is to transfer all council service to the private sector which will result in redundancy so why not come clean and offer redundancy now to those who would like to leave this sinking ship.
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Maybe its because we, the tax payers, cant afford to give you lot all golden handshakes before you go straigh tinto a job doing the same thing.
Typical selfish, grabbing attitude… .are you in training to be a politician?
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Typical arrogant, self righteous, ill-informed attitude… are you already a (Tory) politician?
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Andy, although i can see your point, the union proposal was just one aspect of the alternative plan to safeguard essential services. I have worked for Shropshire council for over 12 years now and feel Kim Riley is playing a clever game by freeezing council tax in the hope of keeping Shropshire council tax payers sweet while he dismantles services and sells them off to the private sector. When these are lost, i guarantee over the coming years he will hike up your council tax and you will be paying considerably more for considerably less services!
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Yawn more rubbish from Andy who has no idea what he is taking about!
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in the long term the council will be absolute rubbish because its staff wont work properly any more, this is short term savings on wages and pensions but in the long term you pay peanuts you get monkeys and it will result in years of sluggish work and sabotage from within and really really poor services for the public. aslo as a private sector worker i would not object to a 1.5% tax rise, because after all i have had a 3.5% pay rise this year yet I know friends in the public sector who have had 0%
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what a rubbish alternative, put taxes up, yeah thats really like to gain public support, the union is just stupid for that, come up with some better ideas please, like cutting back on the number of middle managers and pen pushers for starters!
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“in the long term the council will be absolute rubbish because its staff wont work properly any more, this is short term savings on wages and pensions but in the long term you pay peanuts you get monkeys and it will result in years of sluggish work and sabotage from within and really really poor services for the public.”
Mike , all this sabotage from within is from workers who claim to do the job because they want to serve the public and aren’t in it for the money eh?
I don’t think that they work too hard now but we could always sack the sabouteurs and get some people in who are keen to work for a wage which isn’t exactly poor. Then these ex public sector workers could join the private sectort and find out that sometimes you have to work to earn a crust.
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You don’t think they work too hard now? It would appear that you don’t actually think too much at all do you?
I wonder what vast wealth of experience has prompted your latest false accusations- let me guess, nothing more than you own bigotry and your apparent envy of public sector employment. Not particularly clever or admirable is it?
One day, maybe you and your like will actually make an observation that is based on truth. It may surprise you to learn that we have moved on immeasurably over recent times; you however seem permanently stuck in the past.
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some of the union ideas are good, for sure i would happily pay a small tax increase to avoid recession and pain for thousands of staff in the countys biggest employer, and for sure the management do need to pull their weight but if you add it up thats still not enough to satisfy the condem governments 28% cut to local government funding, so some serious dipping into the reserves will be needed until such time as we get a more enlightened government
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Why does everything always boil down to them and us in this country? The solution is always to tax someone else and ignore the plain fact that we are fast becoming a country without the means to fund this state funded utopia. Cut cloth to suit pockets! Does everyone believe struggling private sector companies should put up prices in the middle of a recession? Probably most would recognise this strategy as a plan to go out of business! Consequently, savings must be made to survive… local authorities same story………
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I see Cllr Keith Barrow is busy blowing his own trumpet about his council’s ‘transparencies’ on the Tory activitists’ website Conservative Home.
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