Squeezed public sector pay, Crushed living standards

Yesterday's Budget should have dispelled any lingering doubts about the importance of the current local government pay disputes in the National Joint Council (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) and the Scottish Joint Council. New questions arise too about the future of (supposedly impartial) Pay Review Bodies given Chancellor Osborne's certitude that they will deliver his 1% pay restraint up to 2016. Alice Hood of the TUC provides a useful analysis of Government pay policy following the Budget announcement - which included a declaration of intent to block incremental progression of hundreds of thousands of public service workers - and says that 'yet again Ministers seem to be pushing pay policies that aren’t based on evidence'
http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2013/03/public-sector-pay-squeeze-tightens/