Local
government HR body Socpo is optimistic the proposed pay settlement for the
sector will improve council services.
Unions
are urging members to accept the Employers’ Organisation for Local Government’s
two-year pay offer, which includes a council minimum wage of £5 an hour and pay
increases for some staff of up to 10.9 per cent.
Staff
ballots finish in mid-September and all industrial action has been suspended
until then.
Keith
Handley, immediate past president of Socpo, believes that the pay offer is good
enough to help tackle local government’s key issues of attracting, retaining
and motivating staff.
"If
the proposals are agreed, I think they will improve local government," he
said. "The new two-year pay deal will surely improve recruitment and
retention issues and employee morale that will spin off into improved services.
"I
am pleased with a two-year deal – in fact my own preference would have been a
three-year deal. The national industrial relations climate is changing as we move
into the Government’s second period of office and nobody wants to see the local
government pay round becoming an annual arena for strike action."
Meanwhile,
the GMB trade union has warned local government’s private sector contractors
that they face strike action unless they implement the pay deal.
The
union has given contractors until 20 September to adopt the pay proposals. If
they fail to do so, the union will then ballot staff over industrial action.
The union fears a two-tier workforce if contractors do not accept the pay
recommendations.
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Mick
Graham, national secretary at the GMB, said: "It is only fair that all
staff providing local government contracts are paid the same."
By
Paul Nelson
