Minister Pickles attack on council chief executives pay is a political fig leaf to distract attention from the cuts he has imposed

16 February 2011

GMB has tracked 162,718 job losses in the pipeline at 290 councils which will mainly come about by not filling vacancies, seeking volunteers for redundancy and early retirements and these will impact on frontline services

GMB commented on Eric Pickles' claims today that Councils should reduce the pay of Chief Executives to mitigate against cuts.

Brian Strutton, GMB National Secretary said "Mr Pickles, on behalf of the Tory/Lib Dem government, has imposed front-loaded budget cuts on Councils which means a £6.4bn funding shortfall this year alone.

So far GMB have tracked 162,718 job losses in the pipeline at 290 councils which will mainly come about by not filling vacancies, seeking volunteers for redundancy and early retirements and these will impact on frontline services.

Councils have already made huge efficiency savings and so now have no choice but to massively reduce essential services to balance the reduced budgets he has set. Mr Pickles knows this full well but doesn't want to take responsibility for his actions. He is trying to create an impression that Councils could achieve cuts painlessly. It's a cheap political trick that shows a total disdain for the communities who are seeing their vital services being slashed.

Whereas the pay of some Council chiefs (for example the £300,000 in Tory Wandsworth) look out of step with the rest, in general any savings from cutting pay at the top is a small drop in the ocean compared to the total budget cuts and is not significant enough to save services from closure. For example, even cutting all Chief Executives pay by a tenth would only amount to around a tenth of one percent of the cuts – it's the other 99.9% that does all the damage. Mr Pickles cynical attempt to create a political diversion from his decision to impose massive cuts to Council services should not fool anyone."

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