Public and Commercial Services Union

Jonathan Slater, Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Aldershot on behalf of Keith Dibble, Labour Party Group Leader for Rushmoor

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?

As the Labour PPC for Aldershot and UNISON member I fully support all fair pay for public servants, both who work in national and local government, as well proper and fair final salary pension schemes.

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 don't support cutting civil and public service jobs for the sake of doing it. As a Labour Party and UNISON member I am committed to the general public receiving high quality services so any reorganisation of staff has to be for this main reason.

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?

Whilst I am pragmatic enough to realise that we have to work with whoever employs PCS and UNISON members, and to forging effective relationships with those employers (including eliminating two-tier workforces), my union is idealogically opposed to privatisation in all its forms. UNISON and myself refute entirely the notion that the private sector can do any better than the public sector in delivering public services, and point to the failure of PFI projects as evidence.

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Sue Dibble, Labour Party councillor for North Town Ward, Aldershot, Rushmoor Borough Council

The key demands of the PCS's campaign include:

(1) pay increases which at least keep pace with inflation

(2) fair and equal national pay

(3) no cuts in the Civil Service Compensation Scheme

PCS's members see these key demands as reasonable because they at least preserve current pay and pensions. However, the PCS needs to convince the Government to accede to these demands on the grounds that they are in the public interest.

In support of these key demands of the PCS's campaign, I would therefore suggest that the PCS should consider:

(1) justifying pay increases by highlighting increases in productivity and efficiency that can be achieved only with the active cooperation of civil and public servants, citing particular examples of successes in achieving high standards

(2) providing a national framework that takes account of any variations in the cost of living in different regions of the country so that the demand for fair and equal national pay is justified within that framework

(3) making comparisons with the private sector to show that the Civil Service Compensation Scheme is fair and equal, so that cuts to it cannot be justified.

 

Further key demands of PCS's campaign include:

(1) guarantees of no compulsory redundancies or relocations

(2) adequate resources and decent working conditions

PCS's members see these demands as reasonable because they protect status and conditions. But we need to acknowledge that, as technology changes, particular jobs may no longer need to be done, so the question then becomes how that change should be introduced.

In support of these key demands of the PCS's campaign, I would therefore suggest that the PCS should consider having as policy that:

(1) where it is recognized that a job no longer needs to be done, retraining and an alternative job offer should be made so that the person affected is not faced with compulsory redundancy or relocation, and, where that retraining or alternative job offer is not acceptable to the person affected, redundancy should be negotiated within a framework agreed with PCS

(2) where a job no longer needs to be done, the change should not have an adverse impact on the resources available to those doing other jobs or on the working conditions of those civil and public servants doing those other jobs.

Another key demand of PCS's campaign is that there should be no more outsourcing without negotiations and agreement.

There is evidence that privatization of public services has been a massive failure in many instances. Also, there are cases where privatization may be claimed to have succeeded but where there has been great loss to the public after the service was sold off too cheaply to the private sector.

In support of this key demand of the PCS's campaign, I would therefore suggest that the PCS should collect well-researched evidence of concrete examples where privatizing a public service has failed and/or been more costly to the taxpayer than it would have been had the service remained in the public sector. Also, PCS should expose where directors of privatized public services collect massive pay-outs from share options when the share price goes up following privatization.

Where privatization is being considered, those employed in that sector should have the PCS's support so that they can bid to provide it on an equal basis to private sector interests, and any transfer should be subject to strict enforcement of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations.

 

I would work with colleagues in the Labour Group to challenge the Conservative Cabinet in control of the Council where there are proposals or policies that would undermine public services. For example, I would oppose any withdrawal of public services on cost-cutting grounds where there is a clear demand for them, particularly from the disadvantaged groups whose services particularly need to be protected.

With the Labour Group, I would seek to identify where outsourced contracts are failing to provide a good standard of service to the public, to see whether they could be better provided in-house.

To the Labour Group, I would also propose cooperating with trade unions, like PCS, to learn how best to involve trade-union members in protecting and promoting public services so that they provide the best standards to the people in Wellington Ward, Aldershot, whom I would represent, if re-elected as a councillor.