UNISONActive is an unofficial blog produced by UNISON activists for UNISON activists. Bringing news, briefings and events from a progressive left perspective.

Thursday 19 March 2015

Public services - more austerity carnage ahead

#Budget2015 The cuts to public services projected in yesterday's Budget speech by Tory Chancellor George Osborne are unprecedented and a timely TUC analysis confirms that 'departmental spending is set to fall by 5.4 per cent in 2016-17 and 5.1 per cent in 2017-18. That’s a rate of spending cuts that is 2.4 percentage points more severe than in any year of austerity to date. Even in 2011-12, when service cuts were at their most significant, spending fell by 3 per cent of GDP.
   The cuts the Chancellor has planned for 2016/17 and 2017/28 are 80% greater than those we have seen before.' Rather than embrace austerity-continuity in 2015/16 and austerity-lite thereafter, Labour must offer a clear alternative to the destruction of public services. And all UNISON branches must get behind the union's strategy of encouraging members to vote out the current Government on May 7:
http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2015/03/the-worst-public-spending-cuts-are-still-to-come/