#NoTTIP The recent War on Want Manchester conference - ‘TTIP: Building the Fightback’ - included a presentation by Jeronim Capaldo of TUFTS University in the USA. Capaldo’s study, ‘The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: European Disintegration, Unemployment and Instability’, provides conclusive evidence that contrary to official assessments, TTIP's intensification of market competition and deregulation will have negative effects on European workers including falling levels of employment, lower incomes and a reduced labour share of national wealth. A summary of the study can be read here:
http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/wp/14-03CapaldoTTIP.pdf
#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/
Councils in the most deprived areas of England have been hardest hit by cuts to their funding, Parliament's Public Accounts Committee has said. Austerity cuts have not been applied equally since 2010, with local authorities in the poorest areas seeing the biggest reductions. The MPs warned further cuts could undermine councils' financial stability and threaten statutory services.
Committee chairwoman Margaret Hodge MP, said: 'These cuts have not hit all local authorities equally, with reductions ranging between 5% and 40%. Councils with the greatest spending needs - the most deprived authorities - have been receiving the largest reductions'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31012671
An extensive article and research by Kevin Farnsworth on the Renewal website examines the extent to which UK public policy is skewed in favour of private companies – placing business tax cuts, deregulation, privatisation and a weakening of employment rights etc in the context of a corporate welfare state. ‘Direct and indirect public provision that is aimed at private companies accounts for a significant share of state expenditure. During these times of austerity and public sector cuts, a detailed analysis of the costs and benefits of corporate welfare is essential to weigh the direction, emphasis and trade-offs associated with corporate welfare’
http://www.renewal.org.uk/articles/the-british-corporate-welfare-state/
The cumulative effects of Con Dem cuts in local government funding (by 37% between 2010/11 and 2015/16) is bringing front line services in England to breaking point according to a National Audit Office report, which finds that ‘one in six councils are not expected to deliver services within budget this year, and more than half of all councils are at risk of financial failure within the next five years’
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/19/councils-risk-financial-failure-auditors
The current national pay campaigns in local government and health are a necessary and overdue response to Government pay policies which have resulted in public service workers being on average £2,245 worse off in real terms.
All of the unions involved, especially UNISON as the largest, have a heavy responsibility to halt this unprecedented downward spiral in earnings and to force employers (and politicians) to respect collective bargaining and pay determination processes.
The stakes are high. In addition to halting the unjustified pay detriment of our members and restoring union credibility, Professor Roger Seifert, reviewing the impact of the 10 July coordinated strike action, argues that the pay campaign poses a much wider question - ‘what do our main political leaders consider to be the future of UK public services? Pay cuts, workload increases, further supply-side fragmentation, and privatisation suggest not just a down-grading of all public services but a removal of some services from public access’
In an excellent blog John Tizard articulates why real change takes guts and hard work, which is a poke in the eye for public sector leaders who bolt towards cutting terms and conditions rather than tackling longer term problems within services.
Cuts to council funding has in many cases translated into new service delivery models, which are often Trojan Horses to remove terms and conditions and take staff away from the local government pension scheme. It is a short term fix putting a sticking plaster over the gaping wounds of public finance. The long term cost is a demoralised public sector workforce, worse services and a devastating impact on families, local economies and future pensions.
http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/5467955?utm_hp_ref=tw
Police staff in Scotland are to ballot on strike action after relations between the force and trade unions have broken down. On top of existing job losses, members have been hit by plans to close four 999 centres, cuts in redundancy terms and and annual leave restrictions due to the Commonwealth Games. UNISON has long warned that the Scottish Government claim of 1,000 extra police is a sham as staff jobs are cut and police officers are used to backfill them.
Services for adults with learning difficulties have been decimated by austerity driven cuts and the introduction of charges. A
Mencap report in 2012 found that one in four adults with a learning disability are stuck at home due to cuts to day services across England, leading its Chief Executive to express concern that 'progress towards greater participation of disabled people in the community and mainstream society risks being undone by a failing system that has long been ignored and is now creaking under the pressure of increased demand and budget cuts’. A powerful New York Times video documentary
‘The Men of Atalissa’ - about a community of men with learning disabilities in Iowa - highlights the danger of abuse and exploitation when social services provision is inadequate.
'The election in 2015 will be an important juncture for our public services – the course pursued after this point will determine whether they can play an effective role in the future in overturning the social determination of poor life chances. The twin pressures of rising demand and shrinking resources are forcing a choice. Either to continue, as this government has largely pursued, the course of salami-slicing Whitehall budgets, squeezing separate services and tinkering around the edges of traditional modes of delivery. This will lead to the decline, retrenchment and residualisation of public services with ever-higher thresholds for use and the termination of some altogether', writes Manchester Labour leader Sir Richard Leese in a New Statesman article arguing for greater localism to tackle regional inequality:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/03/labour-must-challenge-myths-about-decentralisation
A new report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies confirms that the biggest cull of public sector jobs for at least 50 years will see vulnerable parts of the country suffering staff reductions of up to 40%. The study confirms that the reductions are already hitting hardest those parts of Britain with the weakest economic activity and greatest levels of poverty:
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/14/public-sector-jobs-cuts-britain?CMP=twt_gu
As the arrogant and odious Eric Pickles MP blames the blame game on the flooding crisis in the South West of England, it is worth remembering the warnings given by UNISON at the beginning of the year about the likely catastrophic impact of large scale funding cuts at the Environment Agency. Will this Government ever learn that austerity is ruining lives? "Staff in the Agency have worked day and night to keep communities safe and prevent flood damage, and work tirelessly to support those devastated by the aftermath. The government can't have it both ways, praising the sterling work of members in the Agency but at the same time imposing further damaging cuts."
http://www.unison.org.uk/news/cuts-to-environment-agency-jobs-would-be-catastrophic
The BBC's File on 4 last week broadcast an important analysis of the state of home care. A survey of all local authorities in England discovered severe cuts in spending on care services leading some home care providers to withdraw their operations because of inadequate funding. However the real impact of the cuts is being born by elderly and disabled service users whose quality of care is being badly reduced and the low paid workforce struggling to deliver a decent service with inadequate resources and time. In the programme Labour's shadow health minister Andy Burnham acknowledges that previous governments across the board have failed to integrate with heath care and properly resource social care. Every UNISON branch which organises in councils which commission home care services must press for the adoption the union's ethical care charter:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03szh9m
http://www.unison.org.uk/upload/sharepoint/Research%20Material/Final%20Ethical%20Care%20Charter%20PDF.pdf
New research by the Labour Party confirms that the most disadvantaged communities in England are facing the biggest local government cuts. Between 2010/11 and 2015/16 the percentage cut in spending will be 10 times greater in the most deprived areas than in those least deprived. The research highlights that the 10 most deprived areas, including Liverpool, Hackney, Manchester and Middlesbrough, which face an average reduction in spending power of 25.3% in stark contrast to the 10 least deprived areas, including St Albans, Elmbridge, Waverley and Wokingham, which are dealing with an average cut of just 2.54%. The big question is how fast an incoming Labour government will reverse this iniquitous redistribution of social wealth even within the self imposed straitjacket of Con Dem 2015/16 overall spending plans?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25953444
Between 2011 and 2016 councils in England will have been subjected to cuts of up to 40% which according to the Local Government Association have left many councils facing ‘financial breakdown’. The cuts have been accompanied by relentless attacks on local authorities by local government minister Eric Pickles MP – accusing council’s of being ‘incompetent rotten boroughs’, employing workers in ‘non jobs’, ‘stuffing billions into reserves’, ‘anti car dogma’ etc. Yesterday the Commons Communities and Local Government committee ran an #AskPickles session in which questions from the public were put to the hard right Tory MP for leafy Brentwood and Ongar. Asked why he constantly bashes local government Pickles answered that he does it because he ‘loves local government’. A line of justification deployed by perpetrators of domestic violence the whole world over:
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=14698
‘Post 2015 we face either cutting spending on public services to the level of six and half decades ago, rolling back huge segments of the social security system or substantial tax rises’ writes Duncan Weldon of the TUC in a brilliant analysis if the implications of yesterday’s speech by George Osborne MP. The Chancellor reiterated that cuts would continue after the next election in an move calculated to lock down economic policy options into a paradigm of permanent austerity. ‘Politically this is exactly the debate the Chancellor wants’ says Weldon. The big question is whether or not Labour will continue to allow the Tories to set the terms of the debate on public finances or challenge the endless and counter productive spiral of austerity and cuts?
http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2014/01/financial-repression-deficit-reduction
George Osborne MP, the government’s leading prophet of austerity, will today announce that ‘more painful cuts’ are needed in the year ahead, pointing out that public borrowing continues at £100bn a year. This is the same government that has depleted public finances by cutting the top rate of tax for those earning more than £150,000 from 50% to 45% and which by 2015 will have brought down Corporation Tax on company profits from 28% to 20%. Whilst, it is to be expected that a government of and for the rich will favour permanent cuts in public services over progressive taxation on the wealthy and increased taxes for corporations, it would be a fatal mistake for an incoming Labour government to adopt the same approach:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25617844
