UNISON the public service union - At work: Local government

The trade union side submission

Invest to improve - Quality treatment for quality services

The trade union side submission was underpinned by our commitment to providing top quality services that people want and read. We argued that the "culture of neglect" of local government staff will prevent "modernisation" because it has led to low pay, unequal pay, widespread recruitment and retention problems and a high degree of casualisation. We argued that the government and councils need to "invest to improve" and that with substantial increases in funding it will be impossible to significantly improve services.

Key findings

The key findings outlined in the submission were:

local government pay continued to fall behind economy-wide average earnings between 2000 and 2002

overall NJC women workers earn just 65% of the average gross pay of their male colleagues

full-time women staff now earn only 63% of economy-wide male gross annual earnings

for part-time workers, the equivalent figure is a shocking 46% pro rata

59% of part-time women workers earned below £6.07 pence an hour in 2002

90% of councils have recruitment and retention problems, which are not confined to the south east and Greater London or white collar staff

councils' responses are ad hoc and unco-ordinated

agency staff are frequently used in an unplanned way, with no monitoring of impact on services or other staff

chief executives, Best Value officers and personnel officers in a UNISON survey reported that recruitment and retention problems are having a negative impact on staff and services

Working Tax Credits and research by the Family Budget Unit on a 'low cost but acceptable' wage both suggest a minimum wage target of £6.50 an hour.

Key recommendations

pay and related rewards, including Greater London weighting and fringe allowances, should be brought into line with other public sector groups

a centrally driven approach to implementation of Single Status pay and grading reviews is needed, with allied funding and compulsory pay audits

there is already sufficient flexibility in the Green Book to allow councils to take labour market factors into account

we oppose any moves to more localised bargaining as unnecessary and likely to lead to more discrimination.

You can download the trade union side submission and the two annexes as PDF files:

Trade union side submission to local government pay commission
Local government staff suffer from a culture of neglect, characterised by endemic recruitment and retention problems, low and unequal pay and high levels of demoralisation. The union submission provides detailed evidence of these and other problems besetting local government. Link to a document on this site Download that document in PDF format

Annex A - Recruitment and retention, pay levels and the use of agency workers in local government
A research report by Income Data Services for UNISON, GMB and TGWU. Please note this file is a 1.3MB download. Link to a document on this site Download that document in PDF format

Annex B - Pay inequalities in local government
The aim of this paper - by Sue Hastings - is to provide an overview of the position in relation to pay equity in the local government sector. It is not intended as an academic treatise, but as a practitioner perspective. Link to a document on this site Download that document in PDF format

The trade union side has also submitted to the pay commission a response to key themes from the employers' evidence.

Link to a document on this site Download that document in PDF format

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Pay Commission

The trade union side submission

Unions reject 'insulting' local government pay offer