Heather Wakefield

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.

Never mind the strikes, Vince …

7 June 2011 | Heather Wakefield

… 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

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From red tape to mouldy sausages, by Heather Wakefield

25 April 2011 | Heather Wakefield

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...

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No fair shares for chief executives, by Heather Wakefield

31 March 2011 | Heather Wakefield

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...

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The Long March against the cuts, by Heather Wakefield

28 March 2011 | Heather Wakefield

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...

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Why Eaton’s in a pensions mess, by Heather Wakefield

22 February 2011 | Heather Wakefield

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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Economics of madness, by Heather Wakefield

8 December 2010 | Heather Wakefield

For those of us already considerably underwhelmed by the prospect of a royal wedding, 2011 holds rather less glittering prospects. As I write this, the Local Government Association has announced that the New Year will herald 140,000 redundancies – 40% more than its original estimate. Read more...

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Beginning of the end for two-tier protection? By Heather Wakefield

15 November 2010 | Heather Wakefield

Winston Churchill is not one of my heroes. But in one area of public life he remains a beacon of sanity and good practice that puts present day coalition politicians to shame. His support for the protection of pay and conditions of employees delivering outsourced public services and for minimum wage legislation set a standard that today’s ministers would do well to remember and emulate. Read more...

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VIDEO BLOG: Mutual appreciation? By Heather Wakefield

18 August 2010 | Heather Wakefield

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From Toy Story to Tory story, by Heather Wakefield

6 August 2010 | Heather Wakefield

An afternoon South of the Border in Latin America with Oliver Stone on Wednesday and a 3-D trip to Toy Story 3 last night have stuck in my fuzzy ‘downtime’ brain, despite my best efforts to crank up a gear and blog for Public Finance. Read more...

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Council workers still frozen out, by Heather Wakefield

24 June 2010 | Heather Wakefield

In his Big Budget this week, the Chancellor announced a two-year pay freeze for public sector workers  from  2011-2012. However, with uncharacteristic magnanimity, he also said that those earning £21,000 or less would receive an increase of at least £250 a year – about enough to buy five rolls of Osborne and Little’s cheapest wallpaper or perhaps pay one quarterly fuel bill – and an increase of £3,000 in the £18,000 threshold they were talking about before the election. Read more...

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