UK Public sector cuts Newswire Archive
Notttingham mobilises to save services
02-10-2010 10:24
As cuts in services begin to bite, resistance is springing up across the country and Nottingham is no exception. Locally there are a number of campaigns around a number of issues. A well attended meeting organised by the Trades Council was the catalyst for the emergence of a new anti-cuts coalition called Notts Save Our Services.
On the newswire: Notts Save Our Services is launched | Budget cuts: There has to be a better way | Report on Broxtowe anti-academy meeting | Notts anti-cuts meeting report & anarchist leaflet | Nottingham Students Unite to Fight Education Cuts | Resistance to new academy in Broxtowe
Notts SOS launched on September 29 as millions of workers take to the streets across Europe in a Day of Action to protest against government-imposed austerity measures. In Spain, trade unionists held the first general strike in eight years, while in Brussels up to 100,000 demonstrators marched against austerity, while a small group clashed with police.
‘Not Red Ed’ – reinventing Labour, again and again
01-10-2010 21:45
Right to Work invite their priveledged elite to enter the 'exclusion zone'
01-10-2010 19:44
CUTZ: this week in Bristol and beyond ...
01-10-2010 19:26
So, there's nothing happening 'til the Comprehensive Spending Review you say?(Most links deleted to avoid spambots)
Dedicated to Will. He'd know what this means. Shine on.
STRIKE
50 Unison members in leisure centres, country parks and car parking services were out on strike last weekend. Swindon Borough Council have withdrawn extra pay for staff working unsociable hours. This works out at between seven and 14 per cent of the workers' wages.
http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/8414985.Strike_...ntre/
Swindon Unison: unisonswindon@swindon.gov.uk
RUBBERSTAMP
Bristol City councillors have now rubberstamped their plan to cut redundancy payments and pay protection for any redeployed staff (reported last week) as they gear up to make 1,000 staff redundant. The GMB says they will ballot for industrial action on the issue.
The T&G (Unite) and Unison both objected to the plans but seem to be keeping their powder dry on this one. Perhaps they're looking toward even bigger challenges ahead such as the inevitable ConDem assault on local government pensions?
The decision was taken by the council's Human Resources Committee, the star chamber that will be directly responsible for staffing cuts. Its Chair is Lib Dem Steve Comer who also sits on the National Executive of the defiantly left wing PCS union. Quite how he reconciles his two roles is anybody's guess. Also on the committee is Labour's Sean Beynon who owes his seat on the council directly to money and campaigning from the membership of the T&G (Unite). The rest of the committee consists of Tory accountant Geoff Gollop, drippy liberal Fi Hance - who works for drippy Lib Dem MP Stephen Williams - and Lib Dem cabinet member, Mark Wright, a confused working class Tory. Their addresses are online.
BUDGET
Bristol City Council's Cabinet say they are already £2.2 million overspent on this year's budget. It was £5.5m but it has been reduced largely through £3.3m worth of staff cuts branded as "vacancy management". This means low-paid, low-status job vacancies are left unfilled and the staff that remain are worked like dogs by the management to get the work done. Trade unions have yet to find a response to this widespread management tactic.
NHS
The University Hospitals Bristol NHS Trust that runs the BRI is cutting costs by about £18 million this year. That's around five per cent of their budget. Similar cuts are expected at the North Bristol NHS Trust responsible for the Frenchay and Southmead Hospitals. A cost-cutting merger of the trusts is also on the cards in the next few years. Health spending is supposed to be ringfenced from cuts.
The Bristol Evening Post continues to be the local market leader for human interest stories about public service cuts and their effect on the wider public. War veteran Bernard Warren has dementia and terminal cancer and has been assessed by the local NHS as "not being ill enough" for his care to be fully funded under the Continuing Care scheme. Latest news is that he has fallen and broken a hip a day after NHS assessors claimed his risk of falling was too low for him to receive full healthcare funding. NHS Bristol “are sorry to learn of Mr Warren's fall.”
SCHOOLS
Bristol City Council have gone very quiet about the £12m earmarked in March 2009 to refurbish Millpond and Whitehall primary schools. Have these projects been cut?
Buddies, a co-operative providing after-school care at Air Ballloon School in St George has been suddenly shut down due to “financial difficulties”. "[Buddies] risked the school itself getting into financial difficulties,” said the headteacher. No plans have been announced to replace the service.
Welcome to 'Silcon Gorge' the creative industries hub of the UK: this year's Bristol Schools Technology Grant has been slashed by £500,000.
More education cuts are coming soon in Bristol. "Detailed budget plans will be announced in the next few weeks," promises schools boss Annie Hudson.
DEFENCE
Trade Unions are warning that thousands of defence jobs in the Bristol region are at risk as the government embarks on its slash and burn-style defence review. Around 13,000 workers are employed in defence-related jobs in the area and two major aircraft programmes – the A330 refuelling plane and the A400M military transport plane made by Airbus at Filton and Rolls Royce at Patchway - may be targeted.
HOUSING
Bristol City Council will be building just 12 council homes in Lawrence Weston not the 76 homes across a dozen sites promised by the council when the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) awarded the city a £5.3 million grant last year . The council has instead been given £775,690 by the HCA and will need to sell 40 existing empty homes to match fund the grant. There are currently about 18,000 people on Bristol's housing waiting list.
TRANSPORT
Bristol's local transport budget has been being cut by £1.5m
PLACE?
Resturanteur, Mike Bennett, the city council's new 'Director of Place', employed to ‘enhance Bristol’s sense of place’ for £72k a year, has announced that the city needs to promote its quality restaurants better and build some bandstands to attract jobs, money and investment. This view is unlikely to be shared by most mainstream economists.
Thursday found Bennett the subject of a brown-nosing spread in the Bristol Evening Post. Oddly, this highly-paid senior local government officer - who "doesn't do it for the money" - was interviewed in the middle of the day on-site at one of his businesses. Are we paying him to run his business? Or does he have an unusually flexible flexitime arrangement?
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/GIVING-BRISTOL-PRID....html
"TO ME, THINGS ARE WORSE WHEN YOU LIVE ALONE. AT TIMES YOU WISH YOU COULD END IT ALL."
More on the Bristol Older People's Forum report - from last week - that found two-thirds of the residents of sheltered housing think the quality of their lives is worse since their resident wardens were cut to save money.
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Pensioners-life-wor....html
GAG!
Bristol City Council brings in rules trying to gag staff who speak out on the internet from today despite serious concerns from unions and an independent barrister that their actions may be in breach of the Human Rights Act.
SOUTH GLOUCESTERHIRE
South Gloucestershire Council are cutting 33 per cent of their senior managers in an effort to save £2.2 million a year. Between 25 and 30 positions should go in the shake-up. They are also cutting 317 posts in schools – 10 per cent all of non-teaching jobs – to save a further £12 million.
The Conservative-run council has also decided to close its eight old peoples' homes and is abandoning plans to build two new homes. Instead it will spend money leasing the land to a private company to do it.
FoI
Bristol City Council have failed to comply with a Freedom of Information request for performance stats on their controversial and under-fire call centre at Whitchurch. However City Councillor and Cabinet Member Jon Rogers has published some limited stats on Bristol Indymedia.
http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/article/693578?&conden...49831
COCK-UP
The latest Bristol City Council cock-up will cost taxpayers at least £30,000. Avon Coroner, Paul Forrest, who was sacked earlier this year, is now being reinstated because the council failed to follow correct procedures when they sacked him. Once reinstated, Forrest will receive £30k in back pay and be suspended - again - on his full pay of £120k a year. Bristol City Council spends £3m a year on Human Resources 'expertise'.
TOURISM
Much of Weston-super-Mare's tourist industry is to be handed over to a private contractor to save cash from council budgets. North Somerset Council will hand over the running of The Playhouse Theatre, The Winter Gardens and the town's Tourist Information Service to contractor Parkwood Leisure.
THICK THESPIAN
Lib Dem thick thesp, Simon Cook - Bristol museums boss - has instructed everyone to stop moaning about the £72k he wasted on a set of ordinary-looking museum logos from a Manchester design agency because it's upsetting his museum staff. Not as upset as they are about losing their jobs or being downgraded to fill the multi-million pound funding gap his stupid new Museum of Bristol nobody wanted has created, mind.
CHARGES
Bath and North East Somerset Council are imposing a charge of 3% on council tax payments, planning applications and parking permits when a credit card is used. Nice little earner!
BUSINESS
Maskeys the bristol furniture company is to shut down with the loss of almost 90 jobs.
Harvey Nichols at Cabot Circus have announced staff redundancies just days after claiming to have had "double-digit sales growth".
130 workers at Orange in Bristol are to lose their jobs as a result of the merger between Orange and T-Mobile
80 staff working at CPC Packaging in Fishponds have been sent home by administrators appointed six weeks ago.
REDUNDANCY
The GMB claims Sheffield City Council has sent official ‘redundancy notices’ to 8,500 of its staff.
HOUSE PRICE JOY
Wages are stagnant, people are lsoing their jobs but it's alright because house prices are up 9% in Bristol says the Nationwide. That means the huge amount of people who can't get housing in the city are even worse off than a year ago.
September Labour Market profile for Bristol:
http://www.nomisweb.co.uk/reports/1/2038431894/report.pdf
Being made redundant? Problems at work? Being cut? Contact BRISTOL IWW where brothers are doing it for themselves. bristoliww@riseup.net or Tel: 07506 592180
Got any news about cuts in Bristol, Bath or beyond? Send stories, rants, gossip and informed speculation to Cutz, the brashest and best cuts news in the west: bristol_citizens@yahoo.co.uk
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CPC Direct Action Bloc Meeting Point for Sundays Protests.
01-10-2010 18:44
I suppose we should start with the shite news, the squatted convergence space is looking very unlikely as police arrested those involved with taking the space earlier this week and confiscated tools. We are trying to co-ordinate with the few Brummies that we know to try and open another convergence space before the weekend but at this moment no guarantees.Anyone who can offer floors to activists on the day who stay around for the evening activities please let us know. I know this is quite annoying but we simply don’t have the numbers in Brum beforehand to secure the space, if anyone wants to get down to Brum before and open a space let us know and we will put it on the site.
Save FTT Jobs at Reading University!
30-09-2010 23:29
Dear AllStaff and students in the Department of Film, Theatre and Television at Reading University have launched a website and online petition to oppose compulsory redundancies in their department.
Please help the campaign by signing the petition
http://www.gopetition.com/petition/39385.html and visit the website
http://savefttjobs.webs.com/ You can also join the Facebook group 'Save FTT Jobs'
A Little Less Talk, A Little More Action?
30-09-2010 02:35
The latest meeting of the Convention of the Left took place in Manchester at the weekend, within yards of the barricades around the Labour Party conference. The Convention's first meeting was in 2008, also in Manchester. Its purpose was, and is, to unite all factions on the Left. I have not attended any of the previous conferences but they do not seem to have achieved much more than enable Left activists to talk to each other (or make speeches at each other) for a number of hours without anybody falling out over sectarian differences. But this latest conference had a more focussed theme. Faced with a government that has declared its intention to make cuts in public services and the welfare state that will destroy the living standards of the working class, the only topic was: how do we stop this?
college of north east london - cuts protest
29-09-2010 21:22
the 'universities and college union' (UCU) organised a protest outside the college of north east london in tottenham at lunchtime today as part of the european TUC's day of action against cuts. it was also supported by 'haringey alliance for public services'. the demo is one of several running up to a big protest march and rally on the eve of the council budget on monday 18th october in wood green.
a couple of dozen people turned up for the lunchtime protest in damp conditions this afternoon.
with a megaphone, some percussion, chants and placards, the spirited protest attracted quite a lot of interest and a large group of students watched, listened to speeches and took leaflets about the upcoming march on the 18th october.
monday the 18th will see an assembly at wood green library in the high street at 5.30, marching to the civic centre for a rally at 6.30
inside the civic centre, the council will be meeting on the eve of a budget set to bring massive cuts to public services in haringey.
the protests are hoping to stop a massive programme of cuts, closures and privatisation threats, with between 10 and 25% set to be slashed from provision for 16 to 18 year olds, and with up to 40% set to go over the next four years from the adult skills budget.
protestors fear swingeing cuts to local services of all kinds, hospital and health services, public sector jobs, the voluntary and community sector, and to welfare benefits.
they are calling for councillors to stand up to government and refuse to implement the devastating cuts, or to resign.
to get involved or find out about resistance to cuts in haringey, contact 'haringey alliance fro public services' (HAPS) at www.hapsnews.net
Show of solidarity at public protest in Cornmarket today
29-09-2010 20:34
Anti-cuts, anti-workfare - IWW film night and discussion - this Saturday night!
29-09-2010 19:48
NETCU to close !
29-09-2010 18:52
In news about cuts all activist can support – NETCU staff have all been laid off by Cambridge Police!Police sources confirm that all NETCU staff have been served their notice and the unit will close completely in the new year.
Protest Public Service Cuts
29-09-2010 16:22
Unison is protesting outside the YMCA on Stockwell Road that currently hosts the Annual General Meeting of Lambeth Living (who also are responsible for the recent Mayall Road eviction) against proposed cuts in public services. In spite of the rain 20 people have gathered, with banners, signs handing out leaflets and brandishing some sort of blow up batons.
Public services across the UK are at risk. Services that hold communities together and protect the most vulnerable in our society are being cut and sold off after the government’s June budget. And now Chancellor George Osborne is preparing to announce even more cuts in the Comprehensive Spending Review on 20 October.
UNISON is campaigning against public service cuts and to ensure that the message is heard loud and clear ALL members need to be mobilised to defend our public services. UNISON members drive our ambulances, teach our children, clean our streets, care for our elderly and tackle crime in our neighbourhoods. We need to protect their jobs and the services they provide.
To show your solidarity for this campaign please make every effort to come along to the rally on 29 September and join members from other trade unions to listen to speakers from the TUC, SERTUC, GMB, UNISON, Unite, Anti-Academies Alliance – plus others still to confirm.
General Strike in Spain
29-09-2010 11:19
A general strike is taking place throughout Spain today aginst the so-called "austerity measures" imposed by the government and capital. Since midnight piquets, blockades, actions and demonstrations are taking place all over the Spanish State. The strike is planned to last for 24h until midnight tonight..For continuous coverage, latest reports and updates from the streets check out:
http://29-s.net (cat/sp) Video galleries:
http://29-s.net/-videos- Photo galleries:
http://29-s.net/-galeries-de-fotos- Live radio stream (in catalan and spanish):
http://29-s.net/-radio-en-directe- The Big Society - A warning to Jobseekers Claimants
28-09-2010 23:37
Volunteering Wealth Warning - Just don't do it!DO NOT volunteer! Or if you do - DO NOT tell your Jobcentre under any circumstances.
This may be a personal experience, but the warning needs to be made public for ALL claimants of Jobseekers Allowance to be aware.
Whatever you do, DO NOT volunteer for the "Big Society" - as currently being touted by Cameron/Clegg and their evil, slicing and dicing government. Don't encourage them to shirk their responsibilities to society, or to yourself!
This is what happened to me:
Whilst signing on, I happened to mention that I occasionally volunteered at a local tourist attraction on the odd Saturday - and had been for many years. I had thought nothing of it really - not even relevant. Mistake or what!!!?
The next thing I knew, I was being interrogated as to what payments I received (I'm a Volunteer FFS!); how many hours I spent there and on which days; was my presence keeping somebody else out of a job? And countless other unbelievably stupid questions.
I was made to fill in an "earnings record" with all zeros on it each fortnight - and worst of all - MY BENEFITS WERE STOPPED FOR SIX WEEKS while I was "investigated"!
NOTHING, no amount of pleas, could make the bastards see sense - or move any faster. Yes, it was extremely stressful - £65 a week is quite useful when you have nothing else and have paid in for 30 years of your working life.
Anyhow, as a result, my council tax benefit was stopped - leading to endless and time-wasting paperwork with the City Council to make a reclaim. I was told to apply for "crisis loans" (thank God for generous and willing mates) - and presumably if I had been on Housing Benefit - my rent would have gone unpaid and I would now be well on the road to homelessness. Truly bloody frightening!
So BE WARNED: Don't help the bastards out. They certainly won't help you!
Or if you do, the very, very last people to tell you are volunteering are those insane bureaucrats down at the Jobcentre!
And for all the Big Society hype - I have now given up volunteering - so the tourists have to show themselves around on a Saturday morning .... Progress indeed!
Nick Clegg's constituency of Sheffield to make 8,500 redundant
27-09-2010 16:45
GMB CONFIRM THAT SHEFFIELD CITY COUNCIL HAS ISSUED OFFICIAL REDUNDANCY NOTICE TO 8,500 COUNCIL STAFFSecurity Industry Association Abolition
27-09-2010 08:07
Just as the cuts are about to hit the police, more powers will be given to private security guards as the Government abolishes the SIA because it is a quango."Working Class Peoples Bloc WILL disrupt the Conservative Party Conference!"
24-09-2010 13:46
Unauthorised Working Class Bloc march in face of police repression and promises to disrupt the Conservative Party Conference.Because We’re Worth It – The Top Coppers’ Rich List
21-09-2010 08:22
Some government departments have several top civil servants earning more than the prime minister who is paid £142,500.Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude's own department has 21 people earning more than the PM.The Department of Communities and Local Government, headed by Eric Pickles, has nine.Tory conference to kick off winter of discontent
18-09-2010 00:32
The demonstrations opposing austerity at the tory conference on october 3rd will, say trade union reps, herald the start of a winter of discontent in the UK as the cuts move beyond government memos and newspaper opinion columns and become a horrendous part of daily life. Unsurprisingly, west midlands police are attempting to stall and limit the scale of action at the demo. It seems the anti-cuts campaign is beginning to spring into life as a mass movement just in time to assert itself in the face of state-sponsored class war and protest repression.
