About Heather Wakefield
Heather Wakefield is head of the Local Government Service Group of the UK’s largest public service trade union Unison, representing over 700,000 of the union’s 1.4 million members. She was previously a researcher and regional official for the union, and a women’s rights officer for NCCL (Liberty). Heather is a regular commentator on local government and women’s issues.
It is hard to understand why both central and local government have treated female council workers with such disdain. The chancellor should announce a rescue package in today’s Autumn Statement Read more
The campaign for the survival of Brent’s libraries faltered last week when it lost its High Court battle. But the public anger given voice by the Brent campaigners is being replicated across the world, and politicians need to start paying attention. Read more
The council tax freeze announced by George Osborne is being made at the expense of low-paid, local government workers’ pensions Read more
We should not be surprised at riots in inner-city areas like Lewisham. A whole workless generation has been abandoned by society Read more
An internal audit report has highlighted concerns over procurement processes at the London Borough of Barnet. This raises questions about the council’s general outsourcing proposals and also the government’s wider privatisation plans Read more
… check out the public sector morale. Strikes may be the least of the government’s worries as the cuts really start to hit home Read more
Happy Easter Monday! Apart from being the day of the Easter egg hangover, it is also Eric Pickles’ chosen deadline for his consultation on statutory duties – part of the government’s big drive to ‘get rid of red tape’. Strange day for a deadline and – even stranger – the CLG web site says nothing at all about it today. But now that the consultation is apparently closed, let’s hope that those of you contemplating a response to the statutory duties review managed to submit yesterday, in between cream eggs. Read more...
Among the Big Ideas on cost saving from the Communities and Local Government Secretary are council mergers and sharing of chief executives and offices. So ‘Eric Pickles wants neighbouring councils to share chief executives’ ran the headline in the Birmingham Post (21 October 2010). ‘We expect you start merging your departments and having joint offices in order to protect those frontline services’, the Secretary of State told councils in the West Midlands. Read more...
Well, what a turnout! It was no surprise to us in UNISON that half a million resolute and angry people turned out on Saturday to say ‘no’ to the Coalition’s regime of social vandalism, ‘no’ to the front-loaded cuts in local government and ‘no’ to the mindless marketisation of the NHS. Read more...
Baroness Margaret Eaton’s letter to the Observer calling on the government to re-think the proposed increase in employee contributions to the Local Government Pension Scheme made welcome, if surprising reading on Sunday morning. My Craster kippers almost cooked themselves in the excitement. Read more...
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