Category Archives: Public services policy

Is the UK really facing a second winter of discontent?

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Comparisons with 1979 are misleading – strikes over pay now are smaller in scale and focus, and stoked by inflation

Britain is facing a winter of strikes, as industrial action on the railways spreads to the health service and other key sectors of the economy. Such is the wave of discontent that more than 1m working days could be lost to disputes in December, the most since 1989, during Margaret Thatcher’s final years in power.

With inflation at the highest rate in 41 years amid the cost of living crisis, it’s not difficult to see why workers are pushing for better pay. Coming after the worst decade for average wage growth since the Napoleonic wars, including deep real-terms pay cuts for many in the public sector, it’s even less surprising still.

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Mone’s Covid lobbying ‘extraordinarily aggressive’, claims Hancock

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Ex-minister claims Tory peer intimated unnamed firm she was helping was being treated unfairly

The Conservative peer Michelle Mone made “extraordinarily aggressive” lobbying efforts on behalf of a company bidding to supply Covid tests during the pandemic, Matt Hancock has claimed in a serialisation of his diaries.

The former health secretary claimed that Lady Mone made “wild accusations” about the procurement process, intimating that the company she was helping, which is not named, was suffering unfairly.

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Ambulance waiting times in England three times longer in some rural areas

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Disparity between rural and urban areas uncovered by Lib Dem FoI requests to 10 ambulance trusts

Patients in some rural areas wait almost three times longer for emergency ambulances than those in towns and cities, while people with potential heart attacks or strokes now face a one hour 40-minute average wait in one area, statistics have shown.

The disparities were uncovered by freedom of information requests by the Liberal Democrats to England’s 10 ambulance trusts, which in turn covered waiting times for 227 areas across the country.

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Poorer women in UK have sixth-highest cancer death rates in Europe, WHO finds

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Those from deprived backgrounds are particularly at risk of dying from cancer of the lungs, liver, bladder and oesophagus

Poorer women in Britain have some of the highest death rates from cancer in Europe, an in-depth new World Health Organization study has found.

They are much more likely to die from the disease compared with better-off women in the UK and women in poverty in many other European countries.

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English councils warn of ‘existential crisis’ caused by funding shortfall

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Local Government Association says any attempt to patch up budgets by raising council tax is doomed to fail

Local authorities have warned they face an “existential crisis” caused by massive funding shortfalls and any attempt by ministers to patch up budgets by allowing increased council tax is doomed to failure.

The multibillion “black hole” in England’s municipal finances – which has pushed a number of councils to the brink of bankruptcy – could not be fixed by local ratepayers alone, who would face unrealistic council tax increases of up to 20%, the Local Government Association (LGA) said.

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Liz Truss insists tax cuts will go ahead despite public spending promise

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PM suggests borrowing will rise as she surprises MPs by saying she has no plans to cut public spending

Liz Truss has said the Conservatives will push ahead with tax cuts without cutting public spending, instead allowing borrowing to rise over the next few years.

Senior economists had warned on Wednesday that such a strategy, if set out by Kwasi Kwarteng in the chancellor’s fiscal plan at the end of this month, would be likely to spook investors, creating renewed market turmoil.

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Unfunded tax cuts mean UK ‘will need £60bn spending cuts’

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IFS says Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget will leave ministers making serious reductions in public services

Kwasi Kwarteng will need to find £60bn of savings by 2026 to fill the gap left by unfunded tax cuts and the costs of extra borrowing triggered by a panicked reaction on international money markets to the chancellor’s “mini-budget”, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The UK will also struggle to hit the chancellor’s 2.5% growth target, with economic forecasts by the investment bank Citigroup that the IFS uses to underpin its analysis showing the UK will struggle to grow at more than 0.8% on average over the next five years.

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Government ‘burying head in sand’ over health inequality, says bishop of London

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Exclusive: UK’s most senior female bishop calls for long-awaited white paper promising ‘bold action’

The most senior female bishop in the country has launched a scathing attack on the government, accusing it of “burying its head in the sand” over “shocking” and “rampant” health inequalities.

Dame Sarah Mullally, the bishop of London, spoke out after the Guardian reported that Thérèse Coffey was dropping the government’s long-promised white paper on health disparities.

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Public sector job losses could pass 100,000 if government refuses pay rises, says IFS

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Chancellor must top up budgets or face industrial action and further recruitment issues, thinktank warns

More than 100,000 public sector workers would lose their jobs this year if the government refuses to fund higher than expected pay awards for nurses, doctors, teachers and care workers, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The IFS said the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, faced a choice of either topping up public sector budgets or accepting the likelihood of industrial action, further problems recruiting and retaining staff, and a decline in quality of services already under extreme strain.

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Health secretary sets up £500m fund to discharge medically fit NHS patients

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Thérèse Coffey announces measure aimed at freeing up beds in hospitals in England before winter pressures

Ministers are setting up a £500m emergency fund to get thousands of medically fit patients out of hospital as soon as possible in an attempt to prevent the NHS becoming overwhelmed this winter.

Thérèse Coffey, the new health secretary, unveiled the move in the Commons on Thursday as part of her plans to tackle the growing crisis in the health service, especially patients’ long delays for care.

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Government admits 50 firms were in VIP lane for test and trace contracts

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Health department had denied Covid testing priority lane but new disclosure lists firms including lab behind false negatives

The government has admitted that 50 firms were put in a “priority” lane for securing test and trace contracts worth billions, including Immensa, the company involved in a scandal over 43,000 false negative results.

The UK Health and Security Agency revealed the names of the 50 companies to the Good Law Project, the campaigning organisation that successfully challenged the government’s VIP lane for personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts in the courts.

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Scotland school and waste service strikes called off after ‘credible’ pay offer

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Unison, GMB and Unite suspend industrial action day after Nicola Sturgeon hosted talks

A wave of strikes across waste services and schools in Scotland has been called off after a “credible” new pay offer.

Hundreds of schools and nurseries were set to close over three days next week as support staff joined industrial action, along with a second wave of strikes by refuse workers that had already seen bins overflowing and piles of accumulated rubbish in Scotland’s major cities.

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Scottish refuse workers’ strike to continue as union rejects pay offer

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Unite says offer from Scotland’s councils is unacceptable and ‘represents a waste of precious time’

Refuse workers in Scotland will continue to strike next week after the Unite union rejected the latest offer from local authorities.

Council cleansing staff across much of the country are striking over pay. A strike in Edinburgh that led to rubbish building up in the streets during the city’s festival fringe – the busiest time of year for the city – is due to end on Tuesday morning. But further action in other council areas is planned.

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No 46 to Le Manoir: Raymond Blanc funds local bus service to restaurant

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Hourly bus serves local villages and brings staff – and sometimes customers – to Michelin-starred restaurant

With rural buses in long-term decline and a funding crisis putting more routes in peril, a surprising service has appeared on the English transport menu: the No 46 bus to Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons.

Raymond Blanc’s celebrated restaurant and hotel in the heart of the Oxfordshire countryside may not appear classic bus territory. The Michelin-starred establishment’s seven-course dinner with matching wines starts at £350 a head, rising to just over £1,000 if you want to drink the good stuff.

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Truss suffers setback as criticism of civil service pay plan brings U-turn

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Foreign secretary forced to abandon policy amid widespread criticism from within Conservative party

Liz Truss suffered a humiliating setback in her bid to become the next prime minister on Tuesday, as she was forced into a U-turn on civil service pay after a backlash from within her own party.

The foreign secretary swiftly abandoned the cornerstone of her plan for a “war on Whitehall waste” when it was revealed it could lead to pay cuts for millions of teachers, nurses and police officers.

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NHS doctors’ strike is ‘inevitable,’ says new BMA chair

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Exclusive: doctors will use pay row to expose ‘desperate state’ of NHS after years of government neglect, Prof Philip Banfield warned

A doctor’s strike is “inevitable” and will expose how dangerously threadbare the Conservatives have left the health service, the profession’s new leader has said.

In his first interview since taking over as the British Medical Association’s chair of council, Prof Philip Banfield warned ministers that doctors will take the fight to them by using a pay dispute to tell the public patients are dying as a direct result of government neglect of the NHS.

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Political leadership will be critical to overhaul Queensland’s public sector after Coaldrake review

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It remains to be seen if politicians locked in a cycle of point-scoring and conflict can summon the maturity needed for more open government

Queensland’s premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, has enthusiastically welcomed Peter Coaldrake’s review into public sector culture and accountability as “bold”, “comprehensive” and “exactly what I want”. But the hard work of achieving change has only just begun.

Certainly Prof Coaldrake has identified many impediments to good government in Australia: a loss of public sector capacity, capability and confidence; a tendency to rely on consultants and contractors; and concerns about lobbying and about the relationship between ministers, their staff and public service departments.

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Sajid Javid tells of heartache over brother’s suicide

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Health secretary urges men to discuss mental health and to ‘seek help’ when they need to

Sajid Javid has urged men to speak out about their mental health as he spoke publicly for the first time about the loss of his brother, who took his own life.

The health secretary said he still wonders if he could have acted to prevent his brother’s death, and spoke of his “deeply personal” mission to prevent suicides. Javid’s brother, Tariq, 51, took his own life in a hotel in Horsham, West Sussex, in July 2018.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org.

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New strike chaos as teachers and NHS staff warn of action over pay

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Rail unions set to walk out on Tuesday, as clashes loom over public sector pay offers falling short of inflation

A wave of 1970s-style economic unrest is threatening to spread from the railways across the public services, as unions representing teachers and NHS workers warn of potential industrial action over pay.

With the country preparing for rail strikes on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday which will see half the network shut down, the biggest teaching union, the National Education Union (NEU), told the Observer that unless it receives a pay offer much closer to inflation by Wednesday, it will be informing education secretary Nadhim Zahawi of its plan to ballot its 450,000 members. The move could lead to strikes in schools in England in the autumn, the union said.

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Schools and libraries face huge cuts after soaring costs create £1.7bn shortfall

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Exclusive: Emergency council cuts feared across England caused by inflation and higher energy costs

School-building projects, swimming pools and libraries have been earmarked for emergency funding cuts because town halls have been hit by an unexpected £1.7bn hole in their budgets, the Guardian can reveal.

Rampant inflation and soaring energy bills mean that council leaders have been forced to rip up financial plans from a few months ago, with higher than anticipated staff pay bills also contributing to their newfound deficits. Without help from Whitehall, it will leave them no option but to cut services and put up council tax next April.

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