Alice Hood's Archive — Page 2
I’m a TUC senior policy officer working on public services. I cover policy areas such as public service reform, health, local government, public service pensions and pay.
Before joining the TUC I worked in a policy role at the Local Government Association, for the European Parliamentary Labour Party and before that as a full-time elected student union officer.
Alice Hood
More details are emerging about the likely scale of local government job cuts and the impact on the most deprived areas of the country. The Local Government Association has today revised its estimate of the number of jobs likely to be lost in the next year, raising the figure from 100,000 to 140,000. The LGA says that this is because of the way that the cuts are being front-loaded towards the first year of the four year spending review period.
Alice Hood
Ten days ago I reported on work by the GMB to track the numbers of job cuts being announced in councils as a result of the 28% cut to local government funding announced in the spending review. The figures are frightening and are rising fast, with almost 50,000 job cuts in 43 local authorities now identified by the union.
Alice Hood
The Guardian has uncovered further huge cuts to museums this week. The cuts, tucked away in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport Business Plan, will affect up to 20 institutions classed as ‘non-national’ which receive DCMS funding. The affected museums and galleries will have their grant from DCMS entirely removed in 2015.
For some institutions such as the National Coalmining Museum in Wakefield, this represents about 80% of their funding. Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums is not a single institution, but a body that manages a dozen museums and galleries in Tyne and Wear, all of which are expected to be affected as this article from the Newcastle Journal explains.
Alice Hood
Work by the GMB has found that almost 30,000 jobs are set to go in 21 local authorities, with others facing changes to pay, terms and conditions. The scale of the cuts is emerging ahead of the local government financial settlement, which will be announced in early December, with council budgets being finalised in the spring. The Local Government Association warned (Local Government Chronicle subscription required) last month that 100,000 jobs are likely to be lost as a result of the cuts to local government announced in the spending review, but the GMB’s work suggests that this figure could be even higher as many councils are still to announce their plans.
Alice Hood
Thanks to Danny Alexander’s gaffe we already knew that we would be told today that the spending review will cost 490,000 public sector jobs. In his statement to the Commons, the Chancellor confirmed that estimate, which was actually taken from the Office of Budget Responsibility projections at the time of the June budget. An updated forecast will be published on 29 November and it seems like a fair bet it will show a worsening picture.
Alice Hood
In today’s spending review, George Osborne sent mixed messages on public service pensions. The government will wait until Lord Hutton’s final report as the Independent Public Service Pensions Commission in March 2011 before making changes to schemes. But at the same time the Chancellor set a precise figure of £1.8bn a year for the savings they aim to be making from reforms to public service pensions by 2014/15.
The Chancellor clearly indicated that contribution rates would rise, although he accepted Lord Hutton’s recommendation that increases should be staggered and “progressive” – of course the devil will be in the detail as to whether this is borne out when reforms are proposed and negotiated. According to the CSR papers (page 38) the savings figure of £1.8bn per year by 2014/15 is equivalent to 3 per cent on average, to be phased in from 2012.
Coming at a time of pay freezes, rising inflation and redundancies, increasing contribution rates means a further cut in take home pay. Contribution increases could also come on top of those already in the pipeline in some schemesdue to revaluations under the existing “cap and share” arrangements. And there is also a real risk that people feeling the squeeze could decide to leave pension schemes if contributions rise, leaving them without savings for retirement.
Alice Hood
The Audit Commission will be scrapped, Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles announced this afternoon. The Commission is an independent watchdog charged with auditing and supporting local councils to ensure that they deliver effective, value for money services. In a move set to raise plenty of questions (and eyebrows) the audit functions of the Commission will be moved to the private sector. Its research activities will simply cease.
Alice Hood
One early indication of the impact of the Building Schools for the Future cuts cropped up in yesterday’s unemployment stats: an 11.5% increase in unemployment among architects over the past month. This is the first rise in unemployment in the profession for ten months after levels peaked in August 2009, reports journal BD.
Alice Hood
Local Government Chronicle reports (subscription required) that Nottinghamshire County Council is looking to cut up for a quarter of its workforce over the next three years.
Alice Hood
Local transport outside London is likely to face massive cuts in the spending review, according to a report published today by transport group pteg.
