Fife’s biggest trade union has been promised controversial proposed changes to the terms and conditions of council staff have been shelved.
The Courier exclusively revealed in November that a 1% pay cut was being considered for all council staff as a way of saving £2 million.
A leaked dossier revealed further proposed changes to the terms and conditions of the council’s 17,000-plus employees included the withholding of sick pay, pay increase freezes and reduction of public holidays.
Fife Council Labour administration leader David Ross emphasised then that these were just ideas and assured employees no decisions had yet been made, as it continued looking at options to help plug a £77 million budget black hole over the next three years.
Now, following a last-ditch appeal to Fife Council to avoid further “cuts” ahead of last Thursday’s budget, Mr Ross has confirmed in a letter to joint trade union secretary Debbie Thompson that the changes to terms and conditions have not been included.
Mr Ross said: “I and the Labour group share your concerns about the massive attack on local public services being perpetrated by the Tories at Westminster and the SNP in Holyrood.
“The Labour administration will fulfil our duty to manage the council’s finances prudently and responsibly and will meet the legal requirement to set a balanced budget this year. I will be making it clear that we will be arguing vigorously for additional funding and taking whatever action is open to us in defence of our valuable local services.”
Mr Ross added: “We believe that a full and open debate is needed across Scotland about what level and standard of local public services we want and how these should be paid for.
“We are committed to continuing with direct in-house provision of services and to protecting our lowest-paid employees.
“We will continue with our commitment to the living wage. We will seek to make any reductions in employee numbers through natural turnover, early retirement, redeployment and voluntary redundancy.
“We will do our utmost to give our staff long-term security of employment.”
Mr Ross said the indicative savings target of £2m for changes to employment practices was not included in the budget.
However, he added: “We do want to continue the dialogue with staff and trade unions on reshaping our services to better meet the needs of service users and will be discussing this further in due course.
“We also want to engage more closely with staff and trade unions in bringing forward ideas for efficiencies and improvements in our current services.
“I hope we will be able to mount a strong joint campaign in defence of local public services, both locally and at national level.”