Debate on Local Government Pay dispute

Today during the meeting of UNISON National Executive Committee there was a wide ranging discussion on the recent dispute on Local Government pay. For some reason I was reminded of this lovely song. I have updated some of the words in honour of the occasion.

"You say defeatist, I say realist; 

You say sell out, I say fantasist; 

You say betrayal, I say strike chasers; 

conspiracy ,delusion, naivety; 

Let's call the whole thing off...".

Some good news is that I am going to be the special guest of Lambeth branch at the Special Local Government conference which will held next year. Hopefully I can speak on their behalf about future strike winning tactics.  

Lambeth UNISON Local Government AGM 2013

Picture of the Ritzy Cinema, which is opposite Lambeth Town Hall and was today the Annual General Meeting venue for my 2nd favourite UNISON Local Government branch ever, Lambeth!

Sincere congratulations, of course, to my fellow Labour Party comrades, JR and Ruth, who were elected joint branch secretaries!

My invitation to speak to the meeting must somehow have been "lost in the post".

:)

Council budgets and unallocated reserves in London

"Dear Jon
I am responding on behalf of the council administration. I appreciate your appeal is sent in the spirit of a constructive suggestion, and I will respond in the same vane.

Firstly, Labour councillors are as angry about the Tory led Coalition Government’s attack on local government as Unison is, and as I am sure all Lambeth employees are. None of us came into politics to cut services or withdraw from helping the vulnerable in our community. But we can’t ignore the reality of our funding being cut by a third amounting to £79 million over three years. As a responsible administration elected in May with a strong mandate from Lambeth residents, we have a duty to them to deliver a balanced and legal budget to enable the council to continue to serve the most vulnerable and deliver basis services. As Labour politicians we will of course also do everything in our power to fight back against the government cuts agenda (as you say, to make them adopt an alternative economic strategy) or cause a General Election.

Secondly, on the issue of reserves. The argument you are putting to us is the same as Coalition Government ministers have been making. They are implying it is a ‘choice’ council’s have, namely, the Government has drastically cut funding to councils by a third so we should use reserves to fill the gap created by them. This is rank hypocrisy on their part given they are creating the most risky financial environment for public services since the creation of the welfare state. In this environment financial reserves are needed more than ever.

Lambeth’s ‘General Fund Reserves’ as at 31st March 2010 were as you state £28.1m. You don’t need to be an accountant to understand that the purpose of a ‘general reserve’ is to give some measure of financial cushion to absorb unexpected disasters or funding emergencies. The general professional ‘rule of thumb’ has been a general reserve of +/- 10% of our net budget, which for Lambeth currently means about £30m. Last financial year alone Lambeth has two service areas, Temporary Accommodation and Parking that overspent £10 million – it was only with good overall financial management that other service areas under spent to cover this, needing a £3 million call on reserves. Given Lambeth provides approximately 600 services, you can see how financial risks can arise unexpectedly, and had it not been for our ability to absorb the shock, we might have had to close a service down completely.

Thirdly, as regard financial risks the council is carrying. The risk assessment around delivering £37 million Government cuts package is estimated at about 20%, which may need a call on reserves; we may be forced to lose over 1,000 jobs with the consequent redundancy costs, which the Government is not paying for; there still could be unexpected disasters or emergencies; there is a risk that the Council may overspend this year by some £4m (although I have been tough with managers that they need to manage within their budgets); and there is also a low probability of any under spends that could be added to reserves. The overall conclusion is we need some ‘reserves’ to enable us to absorb financial shocks and help deliver transformation in the future.

Fourth, our accounts & reserves are subject to rigorous challenge by the District Auditor, External Auditor and we receive professional advice from the Council’s Section 151 officer (Chief Financial Officer) in regard to the level of reserves. The council will now be carrying a significant level of new financial risk and for that reason we need to structurally reduce what we spend to match our funding from government. All using reserves does is buy you a little time, not replace or resolve the structural funding problem.

Finally, be careful how you interpret the figures you quote – I am told that Wandsworth Council only a few years ago was told off by the District Auditor for having £600 million (yes, £600,000,000 – 200% of their net budget in ‘unallocated reserves’!) and boroughs like K&C had 100’s of millions, both due to their ‘Thatcher endowment’ in the late 1980’s, which has rigged the local government funding formula in their favour for decades. We can only guess how this money has been ‘reclassified’ or spent!

Hope this helps you understand were we are coming from on this issue.

Best regards,

Paul McGlone
Cabinet Member for Finance & Resources"

(Guest post by Citizen Smith)

Blair and Brown...Jon of the Rogers and Young Nick

 (this is an internal London UNISON thingy - enjoy or ignore) -  ..."The interesting thing is that the press have reacted to the story about the rift between Brown and Blair as it was something new.

Everyone knew they couldn't stand each other and they did not have a love hate relationship like the one myself and Jon of the Rogers had. In our case (and yes am bringing this back to me, me, me..) we had a clear division of labour and we worked well together.

I managed the branch on a day to day basis and Jon dealt with the 'revolution' so the lines of division were very clear and obvious and it worked well. We ended up disagreeing because I believed that a branch with 2,300 members had to be managed and some discipline was needed and he wanted a more liberal approach and a free for all, so at the end I left to allow him to do it his way and I wish him the best of luck..."

hat-tip Nick Venedi's blog

Friday Puzzle - Who is Nick going on about?

"I was in fact having this debate with a 'commrade' from Lambeth last night (he happened to be there in the same pub as me) this lefty who is as good looking as Nora Batty and has the wit and charm of Robert Mugabe, was arguing that we (those of us in the Labour party) should regain the party before we start supporting any leaders better still, in his opinion, leave the Labour project and join a real (in his Mugabian reasoning) party. This is the kind of person of course who would rather spend time and energy arguing with the other 28.4 ultra left versions of the far left than concentrate on achieving change and therefore and that way help those wo need it most?"

The World of Nick Venedi

Any ideas?

Update: Nick has clarified his comments here

UNISON NDC 2010: John Gray - Lambeth UNISON branch pin-up

Tomorrow (Tuesday) UNISON begins its National Delegate Conference in Bournemouth.

I will hopefully blog and even twitter on a regular basis during conference.  I thought that I will mark the occasion by posting this picture with me (middle back row) and comrades from my third favourite UNISON branch, Lambeth Local Government, at last year’s conference which was published in their June branch newsletter :)

Sorry to see that their former branch secretary “thumbs up” Nick is no longer an officer of the branch. He will be missed at conference.

Sunday morning canvass in Canning Town South.

Picture is of local Labour Action Team member Brian Collier (left) and Myself “on the knocker”!

Brian worked for 25 years in Environment Health in my 3rd favourite UNISON branch - Lambeth local government. As we waited for other activists to turn up at the meeting point he reminisced about “Mouse” and the 19th century Lambeth “bug wagon”. 

This picture was actually taken by one of our canvass team members - Newham elected Labour Mayor Robin Wales.

Since I am not allowing comments for local posts during this election I won’t mention the pretty good reception we got from electors in the ward and their well deserved moaning about the completely useless lot of existing Ward councillors they have at the moment from the 'orrible' ...
:)

Regional supervision of UNISON Branches

In a welcome development today, 1 April, all UNISON Branches in Greater London believed to be led by idiot branch secretaries, starting with the Lambeth local government branch, are to be placed under Regional supervision.

New UNISON Regional Manager, Nick Venedi, until recently joint Branch Secretary in Lambeth is to play a key role, alongside newly appointed organisers Sid and Doris Blogger.

This development has already been welcomed by the "UNISON Active" blog, and it is understood that Regional Finance Convenor, John Gray will comment further shortly.

All members in affected branches will be contacted before noon on Thursday April 1st.

Guest Post by Geoff Chaucer.

The Levithan Fiddler

Who would have suspected? What really good fiddling and a great folk song as well. I think he should give up the day job.

Hat-tip thingy Cdr Baby Trotter.

Enjoy!

(It's a UNISON thing)

The “Plonker" and "Banana" trade unionists who won't vote Labour

Hat-tip thingy to my new best friend ever, Lambeth UNISON Branch secretary, Nick Venedi. Today on his private blog here he reminds the “plonkers” and “banana’s” in This Great Trade Union Movement Of Ours that there is a huge difference between the Labour Party and the Tories. He also goes on to show in his superb post that there is no alternative to Labour and remind them of the horror (the horror) of Tory Rule.

"Remember the miners strike, the battles and devastation of entire communities by the Thatcher government;

Remember the Sign Off regulations and the fact that TU's had to go out getting every member to sign back on every 3 years;

Remember the utter condemnation by the Tories of the proposal to bring in the Minimum Wage;

Remember Osbornes promise that his first target in government will be the public sector pensions scheme;

And when you remember all of these negative factors (and there are many others) then think again and don't be a banana encouraging people to show their disapproval by either not voting or voting for none mainstream parties that have as much chance of forming a government as I have of being Berlusconis next wife? Don't be a plonker! Vote Labour and help change the party (if that's what you want) from within!!"

I have posted here on what happened to those who thought that there was no difference.

Things are far from perfect with trade unions and this government (e.g. the Post office). In truth the relationship has never been perfect from its very beginning and there has always been constant strife and disagreement - and this will always be so.

The job of the affiliated trade unions is to push our agenda within the Party and government. This is tempered in the certain knowledge that we are part of a movement not its entirety. Most importantly there is also no point whatsoever supporting a Party that is seen solely as our “creature” and would therefore have no chance of ever winning power.

So – in the words of our Nick - don’t be a Plonker, don’t be a Banana - vote Labour! (and if so I say also work for a Labour victory).

Strictly Gone Dancing

Guest post by Comrade Mercader following the sad news that Heenal has left Lambeth.

Is this the sort of thing they teach you then in expensive Boarding school?

A fast fox-trot of some sort no doubt.