Pickles Snow Job On Cuts
Wednesday 16th February
2011
MINISTER PICKLES ATTACK ON
COUNCIL CHIEF EXECUTIVES PAY IS A POLITICAL FIG LEAF TO DISTRACT
ATTENTION FROM THE CUTS HE HAS
IMPOSED
GMB has tracked 162,718 job
losses in the pipeline at 290 councils which will mainly come about
by not filling vacancies, seeking volunteers for redundancy and
early retirements and these will impact on frontline
services
GMB commented on Eric Pickles' claims
today that Councils should reduce the pay of Chief Executives to
mitigate against cuts.
Brian Strutton, GMB National Secretary
said "Mr Pickles, on behalf of the Tory/Lib Dem government,
has imposed front-loaded budget cuts on Councils which means a
£6.4bn funding shortfall this year alone.
So far GMB have tracked
162,718 job losses in the pipeline at 290 councils which will
mainly come about by not filling vacancies, seeking volunteers for
redundancy and early retirements and these will impact on frontline
services.
Councils have already made
huge efficiency savings and so now have no choice but to massively
reduce essential services to
balance the reduced budgets he
has set. Mr Pickles knows this full well but doesn't want to take
responsibility for his actions. He is trying to create an
impression that Councils could achieve cuts painlessly. It's a
cheap political trick that shows a total disdain for the
communities who are seeing their vital services being
slashed.
Whereas the pay of some
Council chiefs (for example the £300,000 in Tory Wandsworth) look
out of step with the rest, in general any savings from cutting pay
at the top is a small drop in the ocean compared to the total
budget cuts and is not significant enough to save services from
closure. For example, even cutting all Chief Executives pay by a
tenth would only amount to around a tenth of one percent of the
cuts – it's the other 99.9% that does all the damage. Mr Pickles
cynical attempt to create a political diversion from his decision
to impose massive cuts to Council services should not fool
anyone."
End
Contact: Brian
Strutton, GMB National Secretary 07860 606137 or GMB Press Office
Steve Pryle on 07921 289 880 or Rose Conroy on 07974 251 823