That is the staggering response of Blackpool Council’s political leadership to the Comprehensive Spending Review. The figures quoted to UNISON negotiators are truly alarming:

• In 2011/12, there will be cuts of £32 million!
• In the following three years, another £25 million of spending will be wiped out!
• As a result, approximately, 1,000 jobs will go!

No-one will escape the impact so the time for keeping your head down is gone. The only response open to council employees now is to fight back hard!

UNISON is organising workplace meetings across the council to encourage a campaign of resistance!

The Cuts In Each Service

For a more detailed breakdown of the cuts and how it may affect you in your service, the following figures have been revealed:

• Children, Adult and Family Services: £16.5 million
• Business Services: £8.5 million
• Places: £3.5 million
• Resources: £2.5 million
• Human Resources: £650, 000

In response to the news, Mike Booth, UNISON Regional Officer, said:
“The level of cuts means that the remaining Council Services will be unsustainable.”

The Impact on Jobs and Service Delivery

UNISON’s Mike Booth said:
“The cuts will have a devastating impact on every family in the town.”

With such huge cuts, whole services will simply no longer exist. Those that remain will either be farmed out to private contractors or remain under the Council in a radically smaller form.

Slashing services to the public will not only affect Council workers and their families when 1,000 people join the dole queue but it will also impact on those people who rely on a service from dedicated Council employees. Furthermore, it will have a knock-on effect on the local economy.

Proposed Changes to Pay and Terms and Conditions

In consultations with UNISON, Blackpool Council failed to offer any alternatives to redundancies other than to butcher our hard-fought terms and conditions:

• A freeze on increments - on top of less-than-inflation pay freezes year-on-year
• Removal of premium payments for working on Saturday, weekends and bank holidays
• Reduction of mileage rates to the bare minimum
• Introduction of car parking charges for staff

The Council leadership’s real agenda

Council Leader, Peter Callow, is keen to claim that his party have to “clean up the mess left by the previous Labour government” and that the level of cuts isn’t his responsibility. While most people recognise that the origin of the present budget deficit lies in the dramatic reduction in tax revenues following the global financial crisis, the Conservative Group persists in making the same political points.

So why has the Conservative-led Council chosen to implement such staggeringly deep cuts?

The clear answer is that its cuts are political. If there was the political will to save jobs and services rather than decimate them, as there has been in other authorities, then we wouldn’t all now be faced with the prospect of redundancy, life on the dole or taking a job in the low-paid service sector.

The Fightback Starts Here!

The cuts are staggering and the only response that Council employees must take is to resist these unprecedented attacks on our livelihoods! The only force capable of standing in the way of the Council successfully implementing its plans is US!

Every member must take an active part in defending their own job and those of our colleagues. Sleepwalking into mass redundancies isn’t an option. We must take action now!

UNISON will be organising workplace meetings in the next couple of weeks so keep up-to-date with developments by visiting this website

LOBBY OF COUNCILLORS Wednesday 24th November 2010

Assemble at 5.15pm on the Town Hall Steps to lobby the Councillors prior to the full Council Meeting

THIS IS YOUR TIME TO BE HEARD SAVE JOBS, SAVE SERVICES