Paul Couchman, Branch secretary, Surrey County Unison, personal capacity
A new Unison report, ‘Councils on the Brink’, shows that councils across England, Scotland and Wales are facing a £4 billion funding shortfall for the coming year, stretching to £8.5 billion by 2026-27.
Unison general secretary Christina McAnea says: “Councils are teetering on the brink of financial disaster … As tough as the financial situation may be, ministers cannot ignore the terrible plight of authorities of every political persuasion.”
On 10 September, I chaired an online meeting called by branch secretaries covering many councils on the frontline of the cuts. This was a follow-up to the highly successful fringe meeting on fighting the cuts held at the June Unison local government conference, particularly on the failure of Unison nationally to lead a fight on this issue.
The meeting at conference was attended by about 100 delegates, representing members in many of the councils that are affected by cuts and, in some cases, by Section 114 ‘bankruptcy’ notices – with many other councils saying they may issue Section 114 notices in the near future. Delegates from branches whose motions on fighting the cuts had been ruled out by the Standing Orders Committee were also in attendance.
There was a very clear mood at the fringe meeting that we need to do more as a union; at the very least carry out the policy agreed by the Local Government Service Group Executive (SGE) to lobby councillors for legal no-cuts budgets and to work towards national industrial action against the cuts.
The fringe meeting agreed to continue to network and build upon the event. Hence this follow-up meeting, which was open to any Unison activist who wanted to be part of the discussion. No Unison resources were used to organise the meeting.
National campaign
Jean Thorpe, chair of Nottingham City Unison (speaking in a personal capacity), introduced the meeting. She reminded people that conference had voted for the union to organise an autumn national demo against local government cuts, yet nothing has happened. Branches are still being left on their own to fight back against cuts in jobs and services.
Jean also made it clear that the cuts are going to continue under this Labour government.
Many at the meeting said the union leadership lacks confidence, and seems to be waiting and hoping for Starmer to step in and solve the crisis. It was noted that there are hundreds of Labour councillors linked to Unison, many of them ex-Unison full-time employees, but there appears to be no attempt by the union to win them over to a no-cuts budget position.
Unison should demand the funding needed immediately from Starmer, and prepare a national campaign to back up that demand.
Speakers made it clear that Unison’s policy adopted by the SGE in 2016 supported legal no-cuts budgets, but the union bureaucracy has never acted on this policy, saying there is no such thing as a legal no-cuts budget. But Mark Evans from Carmarthenshire County Unison gave an example of how their branch has developed a no-cuts budget over the years, using borrowing and reserves, as a breathing space to develop a workforce and community campaign, and put it to the council.
The possibility of getting a special Unison local government conference on the cuts was raised, which would need branches representing 25% of the membership to call for it. Jim McFarlane, from Dundee City, spoke on the need to devolution-proof any model motion so all the nations can come behind it.
The meeting closed with unanimous agreement that the original sponsoring branch secretaries would meet and draw up draft model motions and a potential strategy for getting the union to take up the fight on a national level.
