Birmingham Single Status

SECONDS OUT! RUDGE V BORE ROUND THREE

28-11-2007

Labour leader Sir Albert Bore accuses Alan Rudge, the Cabinet Member responsible for introducing the Single Status Pay And Grading Review in Birmingham, of misleading the public. Check out the latest installment in their increasingly bitter dispute.

To see the original article in which Sir Albert called for a halt to the current pay review, click here

For Alan Rudge’s response, in which he accused Bore of “hypocrisy and irresponsibility, click here

Now read Sir Albert’s response to the response in full:

Cllr Alan Rudge has scant regard for the staff over whom he has political responsibility. He is attempting to turn the Pay & Grading Review into a political dispute over “allowances and bonuses of dubious legality”, his words, when the real issue is the livelihoods of the City Council’s staff.

Let me set out some facts.

The Labour Group waited until 2003 to start the Single Status process, when we were in control of the Council, in order to draw on the experience of other Local Authorities.

In 2004 the Tory/Lib Dem coalition took control of the Council and, in February 2005, removed from the budget the £11m we had set aside for helping to deal with the Single Status process. They stopped the process we had started in 2003 and only restarted it last year.

If Alan Rudge wants to bandy around arguments of hypocrisy and irresponsibility then he should stop issuing misleading figures on who is winning and who is losing.

The only information that we can go on is that supplied in private agenda items to Cabinet and at times that information has been scant.

We have often learnt more about what is going on by reading his press articles – indeed the 14% of staff he now says will be losers was reported as 12% in the report to Cabinet on 10 September 2007.

Loyal employees who have given years of service to the Council are now expected to take a cut in pay and for many staff, cuts in excess of £10,000 per year.

The fact remains that large numbers of staff are losing money – it is irrelevant that pay is protected for 3 years. Over that period their pay will go down in real terms because they will not receive the annual pay rise that will be paid to all other staff.

What is he expecting them to do – jump ship before the pay protection expires? What does he think this is doing to staff morale?

The issue of equal pay for equal work is one, which lets face it, affects all local authorities whether Conservative, Liberal or Labour-led. He did not bring in the Single Status legislation.

It was a Labour Government that required local authorities to apply the principle of equal pay for equal work – a principle that we should not have waited for a Labour Government to legislate on. I don’t have to learn any lessons from Cllr Alan Rudge regarding these matters.

I say to Rudge and his colleagues in the Cabinet - stop hiding and face up to the response from your workforce. This process should be about equalising pay for women, yet large numbers of female staff are receiving pay cuts or are being required to work a longer working week with no increase in pay.

That is Cllr Rudge’s responsibility – it is the Pay and Grading review that he is promoting which is creating this situation.

In recent years, the Labour Government has provided successive substantial rises in Revenue Support Grant of £70 million and more per annum, which would be equivalent to 40% increase in Council Tax.

It has also recently agreed to allow additional prudential borrowing to enable local authorities across the country to meet the equal pay/backpay sums. At no time does the Tory-Lib Dem coalition acknowledge the extent to which the Labour Government has put more money into local government above the rate of inflation, when Tory governments for years reduced financial support for local government.

This Pay and Grading review has descended into an exercise in cutting the overall future wages bill by the Tory/Lib Dem City Council, below that which results from continuing forward the equal pay awards.

They have lost sight of the objectives of the Single Status legislation by creating a situation in which thousands of Council employees now feel betrayed and undervalued by its management and political leadership.

It is not surprising that morale amongst Council staff is at a low when Councillor Rudge is quoted as saying that those adversely affected by the changes were at the moment being overpaid for the work they were doing.

It’s the height of irresponsibility to put the livelihoods of thousands of staff in jeopardy by cutting their pay through a Pay and Grading review process that has failed to consult adequately with staff over the nature and responsibilities of their work.

That is why the City Council needs to take a step back from the process – we owe it as an employer to deal fairly with all staff, winners and losers. I do not accept that the City Council has carried out the process fairly, especially towards the staff who have been told that their pay is to be cut.

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