Archives for May 21st, 2009

PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS AIR FURTHER PAY CONCERNS

Headlines, PublicNet: 21 May, 2009

Higher education unions have described a pay offer by the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) “the worst in the public sector”, while the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union has opened their annual conference with an attack on the latest pay offer for the civil service.

Five unions representing higher education staff­ – EIS, GMB, UCU, UNISON and Unite – were responding to the UCEA increasing their pay offer from 0.3% to 0.4%. They are also unhappy about the progress of a proposal to avoid redundancies in the sector.

University and College Union general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: ‘UCEA has managed the remarkable feat of making the worst pay offer in the entire public sector. There is nothing to prevent UCEA negotiating a national agreement to prevent job losses. In fact in these exceptional financial circumstances we think it is absolutely essential. They have failed to understand, or deal with, the full scale of the jobs crisis in the sector.’

Meanwhile, PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka claimed that his members were being treated as “second class citizens”. Addressing union members in Brighton, he said:

“The government’s refusal to honour the agreement reached last year and the pressure on employers not to offer more than 1.5% as a basic award is an insult to the low paid workers who deliver our frontline services.

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LOCAL GOVERNMENT WELCOMES SELECT COMMITTEE REPORT

Headlines, PublicNet: 21 May, 2009

Leading figures in local government have welcomed a call by the Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee for more power to be devolved to local authorities.

In a report issued yesterday, the committee recommended cultural change in central government and parliament, changes to local government financing, and more power for councils in the areas of health and policing. It also warned against over inspection, recommending a “genuinely less obtrusive performance framework.”

Chair of the CLG Committee Dr Phyllis Starkey said that Britain was a “long way from an equitable and healthy balance of power between central and local government:

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THE CONSUMER IN PUBLIC SERVICES

Book News, PublicNet: 21 May, 2009

Edited by Richard Simmons, Martin Powell and Ian Greener

The consumer in public services critiques established assumptions surrounding citizenship and consumption. Drawing on empirical research, it challenges existing stereotypes about the ‘consumer as chooser’ and shows how we must develop a more sophisticated understanding of consumers, examining their place and role as users of public services.

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