Town hall chiefs issue call to give staff fair a pay rise

COUNCIL leader Richard Farnell has joined forces with 90 other Labour town hall chiefs across the country to call on the government to give council staff a fair pay rise.

The leaders have written to the Chancellor Philip Hammond urging him to ditch the public sector pay cap and guarantee to fund the two per cent pay offer made to council staff by the National Employers for Local Government Services this week.

The letter notes that local government workers have suffered real terms pay reductions since 2010 that, combined with increases to the cost of living, mean they’ve lost the equivalent of £1 in every £5 they previously earned.

Coun Farnell said: “Thousands of local people depend on the hard work of council staff – from care workers to parks attendants, and from social workers to street sweepers. So I support the decision of the National Employers for Local Government to recognise the difficulties faced by many council workers in recent years, and to offer a 2% deal for each of the next two years.

“But local government has suffered the biggest cut of any part of the public sector so it is vital that the Chancellor uses next week’s Local Government Finance Settlement to fully fund the cost of this deal, and to start to reverse the appalling cuts planned to local government. The two per cent pay rise will cost Rochdale Council an extra £2 million a year. I’ve joined Labour leaders from across the country to write to the Chancellor to demand that the pay cap is formally lifted, that he fully funds the offer that has been made, and that he urgently addresses the £5.8bn gap in funding councils face by 2020.”