PUBLIC SECTOR
Deputy PM casts doubt on plans to impose regional pay in the public sector
Nick Clegg has today poured cold water on plans to impose regional pay in the public sector, the Guardian newspaper reports.
The deputy prime minister is reported to have said: "Nothing has been decided, and I feel very, very strongly, as an MP in South Yorkshire with a lot of people in public services, we are not going to be able simply, willy-nilly, to exacerbate a north-south divide. There has been ludicrous scaremongering, particularly by the trade unions, when there is no proposal on the table at all, and in very specific cases it was done by a previous government."
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He added: "I think people should be reassured we are not going to rush headlong in imposing a system from above, which if it was done in the way sometimes described would be totally unjust because it would penalise some of the people working in some of the most difficult areas."
In his Budget 2012, George Osborne, the chancellor, confirmed that he wants public sector pay to be “more responsive to local pay rates”. He has asked the pay review bodies to draw up proposals for localised pay markets.
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Title: “Nick Clegg dismisses regional public sector pay plans”, by Patrick Wintour, guardian.co.uk, 14 May 2012.
Availability: Read the article online at www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/14/nick-clegg-dismisses-regional-pay.
Trade union reaction
"Unions attack regional pay plans", by Alan Jones and Joe Churcher, The Independent, 14 May 2012.
Unions today stepped up demands for the government to scrap controversial plans for regional pay in the public sector after the Deputy Prime Minister said no final decisions had been taken: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/unions-attack-regional-pay-plans-7746491.html