Pay – Delay, dither and delusion by council leaders yields another insufficient and insulting offer:
Employers group CoSLA yet again dithered and delayed to well after the settlement date of 1st April to even sit down with council unions to discuss the pay offer.
With our members still suffering from 15 years or more of cuts to their pay, our claim of 7% or £1.60/hour increase and movement towards the minimum £15/hour rate (promise for 2026/27 in last year’s settlement) was reasonable.
Councils chose, however, to only budget between 2% to 3% for pay.
The initial proposals of around 2.5% were ultimately replaced with an offer of just 2.2% from April to September 2024, then moving the pay settlement date to October 1st and awarding a further just 2% for the next year of October 2024 to September 2025.
Reject This Insufficient and Insulting Offer:
In this now 18 month offer, both figures are still well below even the lowest of the only recently reduced inflation measures.
It will show an in-year (April 2024 to March 2025) pay increase of around 3.2% but this is still well short of our claim and does nothing to help our struggling members still drowning in the ongoing cost of living squeeze. There is no path showing a commitment to the £15/hour promise and no bottom loading to help the lower paid. The shift in the pay settlement date offers no sweetener and comes with little detail of how that will improve pay negotiations in the future.
Meanwhile, the employer talks about it being time the unions gave something back, like our members haven’t been giving for well over a decade of pay cuts – and government ministers like Shona Robison claim they have provided councils with above inflation funding increases, that our members (who are the council services) have never seen in their pay.
UNISON plans to consult members from next week with a recommendation to REJECT this offer and we will continue preparation to ballot sections for action to force both the employer and ministers to recognise the need to pay our members what they deserve for once.