Prospect Public Services Conference: members continue to fight for a fair deal

Members from across Prospect’s public services membership have reaffirmed their commitment to fighting for a better deal on pay, conditions and job cuts.

At Prospect’s Public Services Conference in Nottingham this week, delegates from branches across the country unanimously passed several motions condemning the government’s treatment of its own civil servants.

Moving a motion on behalf of the Public Services Sector Executive Committee (PSSEC), Deputy General Secretary Garry Graham lambasted the government for briefing the press that they planned to cut 91,000 jobs in the Civil Service before telling workers – telling members that he had heard “genuine incredulity from employers” at the announcement having “no analysis, no detail, no business plan”.  

Though the formal, central targets have since been abandoned, Garry outlined the union’s resolve to continue to resist cuts and changes to redundancy terms, noting that no minister had been able to “give an example of what government should stop doing” if the workforce is cut. 

Another member of PSSEC, proposing a motion calling for pay system reform, described the Pay Remit Guidance process as a sham that prevented local agreements tackling pay progression and other structural pay issues. They set out the impact that years of real terms pay cuts had had on members’ living standards and condemned the “lack of independence, rigour and evidence” in the current process.  

A delegate from the Valuation Office Agency echoed these comments in a speech that reiterate Prospect’s long-standing call for an independent pay review body to be established and prevent civil servant pay being used as a political football. The critical role specialists play in the Civil Service was highlighted by a member from the UK Intellectual Property Office branch, who highlighted the cuts to the number of specialists and the lowering of the grades of some of these essential roles.  

Members have been undertaking industrial action since March, with two days of strike action and continuous action short of a strike, in a dispute over pay, proposed changes to redundancy terms, and job cuts.