baskingstoke and deane responses
Rob Golding, Conservative Party councillor for Winklebury Ward, Basingstoke and Deane council
1. PCS is campaigning for fair pay for its members, meaning that their pay should increase in line with inflation and be negotiated nationally instead of 200 separate sets of negotiations. Do you support PCS’s campaign for fair pay for public servants?
It is essential that public sector workers are paid fairly. Pay should rise in line with inflation or be determined by an independent review body with fair terms of reference. Pay rises should be paid in full from the normal date. Staging or deferring is a pay cut and unacceptable. I do not agree that all pay should be negotiated nationally as central Government already has too much power. I support more power for local communities and their elected representatives.
2. The government has proposed to cut over 100,000 civil and public service jobs. They claim these cuts will not impact service delivery to the public, however every day our members are seeing how less staff means a poorer service to the public. Where do you stand on cutting civil and public service jobs?
It is right that we should look for ways of providing public services more efficiently and sometimes that will mean that less jobs are required in some areas. However the Lyons Review and similar reviews by this Government were fatally flawed because they set out to justify reductions that had already been determined by the Treasury. There are many areas of the public sector where staff are under too much pressure and unable to deliver the quality of service that the public has the right to expect. Cutting staff in those areas is just ridiculous.
3. PCS is concerned that privatisation of the civil service has continued since 1997. We believe this is costly and unnecessary and jeopardises services being delivered to the public, often the most vulnerable in society. Where do you stand on privatising public services?
I would not take a dogmatic view on whether public services have to be delivered by people who are directly employed by the Government. Many private sector organisations outsource some of their activities and I do not see any reason why Government should not do the same. However each situation needs to be looked at on its own merits without any presumption that work should be done in-house or out-sourced. The key test is "what will deliver the best service for the public?". Too often this Government has not done the work needed to answer that question.
The most important thing I can do is to build good working relationships with council officers and treat them with respect. If a situation ever arose where I thought that council officers were being treated unfairly I would speak out against it and press for a different approach. I would expect all decisions about levels of service and how they are delivered to be based on proper, unbiased research and analysis. I would oppose any attempt to use officers as a political football. In my election address when I was first elected as a councillor I wrote "We need good public services so people can live safely in their own homes without anti-social behaviour, graffiti or uncollected rubbish". If re-elected, I will continue to press for further improvements in local public services.
Ranil Jayawardena, Conservative councillor for Bramley and Sherfield Ward, Basingstoke and Deane Council
1. PCS is campaigning for fair pay for its members, meaning that their pay should increase in line with inflation and be negotiated nationally instead of 200 separate sets of negotiations. Do you support PCS’s campaign for fair pay for public servants?
2. The government has proposed to cut over 100,000 civil and public service jobs. They claim these cuts will not impact service delivery to the public, however every day our members are seeing how less staff means a poorer service to the public. Where do you stand on cutting civil and public service jobs?
3. PCS is concerned that privatisation of the civil service has continued since 1997. We believe this is costly and unnecessary and jeopardises services being delivered to the public, often the most vulnerable in society. Where do you stand on privatising public services?
Thank you very much for your letter and the opportunity to outline Conservative views on the public services.
As David Cameron has explained: "instead of using public servants as scapegoats we should acknowledge their successes. Instead of constantly beating up on the public sector and telling it to be more like the private sector, let's be more reasonable and constructive" (Speech to the National Consumer Council, 6 June 2006).
Conservatives have always focused, rightly, on giving taxpayers value for money. But we also recognise the important role played by the dedicated public sector professionals who work hard to improve the quality of people's lives. Conservatives value that commitment, and trust their professional responsibility.
Local authorities now face immense funding pressures, with a tight funding settlement, new central requirements for annul cashable efficiency savings, and burdens imposed on Whitehall which are not properly compensated. In this context, there will inevitably be a need to control wage inflation, in order to keep council tax down.
Councils have an obligation to ensure value for money for the taxpayer, and should as a matter of course consider whether local authority services can be provided at more competitive prices, without harming frontline services. In particular, there is significant scope for back office savings for more joint working.
We believe that central Government should decentralise, deregulate and remove unnecessary and bureaucratic burdens on councils, to free up more resources for frontline services and relieve pressure on council tax.
Conservatives want the public sector to adapt best practice in terms of modern management and successful, cutting-edge business models which deliver value for money. Yet the quality of service that someone gets does not depend primarily on whether that service is being provided by the private sector or the public sector. It will depend on whether public sector workers are motivated and trusted to use their personal skills, experience and discretion to do a good job.
We recognise that some outsourced contracts have not delivered value for money for the taxpayer. Indeed, the Local Government Association has warned that the costs of private sector contract inflation are a key factor behind council tax pressures, due to poorly drafted contracts and the small number of firms who are able to bid for increasingly complex public sector procurement contracts.
I hope this addresses the issues you raised.
Horace Mitchell, Conservative councillor for Highclere & Bourne Ward, Basingstoke & Deane Council
1. PCS is campaigning for fair pay for its members, meaning that their pay should increase in line with inflation and be negotiated nationally instead of 200 separate sets of negotiations. Do you support PCS’s campaign for fair pay for public servants?
In general I believe it's more appropriate for pay to be negotiated regionally not nationally and that there should be more scope for individuals and team earnings to increase on the basis of performance, properly measured in terms of output quality
2. The government has proposed to cut over 100,000 civil and public service jobs. They claim these cuts will not impact service delivery to the public, however every day our members are seeing how less staff means a poorer service to the public. Where do you stand on cutting civil and public service jobs?
I believe employment is out of balance across the UK; in some regions public sector is too high a proportion of total employment and this is reducing opportunities for wealth creation there
3. PCS is concerned that privatisation of the civil service has continued since 1997. We believe this is costly and unnecessary and jeopardises services being delivered to the public, often the most vulnerable in society. Where do you stand on privatising public services?
I'm deeply concerned that in too many cases privatisation is shifting accountability from elected to unelected people. If elected I will place a very high emphasis on quality, accessibility and cost of those services that are most appropriately provided by the public
Tab Bottom
- Directory
- Contact Us
- Search
