Public sector workers warned of five-year pay freeze

Published on Friday 28 August 2009 22:49

PUBLIC sector workers were sent a warning shot last night that they will have to take their share of the pain from the recession.

Scotland's 32 council leaders met yesterday to discuss proposals to impose a five-year pay freeze on their staff.

They emerged from the meeting warning unions that councils do not "exist in a vacuum" and have to look at the realities of the current economic crisis. They warned that they intend to go even further and will review pensions and other benefits.

They are also gearing up for large-scale spending cuts, taking the brunt of 500 million which is due to be slashed from the Scottish block grant in 2010-11 by the UK government.

But a vice-president of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla) warned his colleagues that they must also be willing to share the pain if they want to impose a wage cap.

Neil Fletcher, a councillor from Aberdeen, which has had to make massive cuts in recent years, said that plans to give councillors an annual rise of 2.5 per cent need to be dropped. "If we are serious about saving money and want to freeze staff pay, we should lead by example and freeze our pay until the next election in 2012," he said.

The council leaders, who were meeting at Cosla's HQ in Edinburgh, were discussing pay arrangements from 1 April, 2010 when the current two-year pay deal comes to an end.

Cosla human resources spokesman Michael Cook said: "Scotland's councils are not operating in a vacuum – local government is not immune from the economic downturn or the pain being felt elsewhere.

"All things on pay and conditions obviously need to be fully discussed with the trade unions."

Matt Smith, Scottish secretary of the union Unison made it clear that a pay freeze was "unacceptable".