As if Chelsea losing 4-2 to Manchester City wasn’t bad enough! I was in a stunned and unusually muted queue descending the Matthew Harding lower terraces on Saturday, when a nearby fellow Blue – generally more prone to pies than conversation – managed to punctuate my aura of despair by asking what was happening to his council pension. Read more...
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 London regional official for Unison, Women's Rights Officer for NCCL (Liberty) and is a regular commentator on local government and women's issues.
The cult of council tax cuts, by Heather Wakefield
In the male-dominated world of local government, competition for the largest is currently focused firmly on council tax cuts. This macho race to the bottom is as true in the capital as elsewhere. While Labour councils in London celebrate a freeze and Hammersmith & Fulham a cut, mayor Boris Johnson is planning to opt for a second year of ‘no council tax growth’, despite promising to re-allocate ‘spending to areas of greatest need, like the police force’. Sadly, he’s not alone. Read more...
9 February 2010 | Heather Wakefield
The perfect pay storm? By Heather Wakefield
Over 1.5 million workers employed by councils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland face a pay cut from April 1, after the Local Government Employers informed Unison and the other unions at a meeting last Wednesday that there would be no pay offer this year. Everyone from the cleaner to the chief executive will suffer – though clearly not equally. Read more...
25 January 2010 | Heather Wakefield
Battles on the home front, by Heather Wakefield
Housing policy popped up in the general election campaign last week with the Liberal Democrats pledging to make 760,000 empty homes in England available for people who need them. Absent owners would be eligible for a grant or cheap loan to renovate them and bring them into use for social housing or private rent and 65,000 jobs would be created in the process. Read more...
18 January 2010 | Heather Wakefield
Good will hunting, by Heather Wakefield
Few could take issue with the notion of a National Care Service, given life in last week’s Queen’s Speech. Unison certainly doesn’t. We want the promised universal access and national standards. We believe that the NCS should provide care on the same basis as the NHS and could be funded through increased National Insurance contributions and/or other means of taxation. Read more...
30 November 2009 | Heather Wakefield
Unkind cuts, by Heather Wakefield
Sorry to be a party-pooper, but this has been another of ‘those’ weeks in Unison’s local government section – an increasingly familiar week, in which our ‘Jobs Watch’ tracked the relentless rise in council redundancies and news landed of a proposed end to facility time for many of Unison’s lay representatives in Lancashire and Essex. Read more...
9 November 2009 | Heather Wakefield
A touch of frost, by Heather Wakefield
There will not be a collective holding of breath from 1.5 million local government workers on October 26, when Unison lodges its claim for their 2010/11 pay increase. Messrs Darling and Osborne have been vying with each other to see who can freeze public sector pay the hardest and, with successive pay rounds having dealt them the cruellest hand, council employees will know they have one big fight on their hands to get any pay rise at all. Read more...
16 October 2009 | Heather Wakefield
Labour’s not finished yet, by Heather Wakefield
‘A party of restless and relentless reformers’ was how Gordon Brown described us here at Labour Party conference in Brighton yesterday. That felt about right, and in case anyone was in any doubt that the prime minister is serious about Labour’s purpose, he outlined a list of commitments for the next Parliament and beyond that should make David Cameron’s eyes water. Read more...
30 September 2009 | Heather Wakefield
Live from Liverpool, by Heather Wakefield
We may never know if Gordon Brown’s fondness for Dear Prudence stemmed from a love of the Beatles’ 1968 vintage White Album track, but he was in the Fab Four’s home town yesterday, forced to confront the sort of economic and fiscal crisis that Dear P alone might not be able to solve. And there was, of course, no doubt that she is well and truly ‘out to play’. Read more...
16 September 2009 | Heather Wakefield
Slash and burn, by Heather Wakefield
What’s in a recession? More than might be necessary or wise when it comes to redundancies in councils, it seems. The cutting of 350 home care jobs and closure of seven daycentres announced in Northumberland is just one recent example of ‘savings’ apparently demanded of local government by the recession. But are these really cuts that the economy needs and the public craves? What’s really behind them? And won’t cutting council jobs help turn a recession into a depression? Read more...
27 August 2009 | Heather Wakefield
Taking social work pay to task, by Heather Wakefield
Social workers are part of a local government workforce dogged by poor pay, high vacancy levels and lack of investment in training. Will the social work task force change anything? Read more...
29 July 2009 | Heather Wakefield
Public sector pay freeze? By Heather Wakefield
The breathtaking cheek of the bankers, the CBI and their chums in the Taxpayers’ Alliance demanding a public sector pay freeze is enough to drive a union maid far beyond distraction. Read more...
13 July 2009 | Heather Wakefield
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