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FEATURE


Combating The Cuts

The UK is facing major cuts to public services as politicians try to make millions of pounds worth of budgetary savings. The NASUWT believes there is an alternative to slashing essential services. Teaching Today takes a look at the impact in Northern Ireland where the NASUWT is leading the fight to protect education, jobs and public services.


Budget bombshell expected

As Teaching Today went to press, the full extent of the impact of the public sector cuts on Wales was about to be revealed. The outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) will dictate the scale and size of cutbacks but the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) has already announced that it is making a 1% cut in its budget for 2010/11 and is planning cuts of 3% to revenue and 10% to capital spending for the years ahead. Local authorities are bracing themselves for a fall in revenue of around £140 million per year, with the impact exacerbated by the high number of workers employed in the public sector in Wales – some 27.5%.

Any budget cuts are likely to have massive implications for the education service and also the pay and conditions of teachers across the UK. The NASUWT is working with partners through the Wales TUC to seek to protect public services from cuts. Through the TUC, the Union is feeding into a Public Services Efficiency and Improvement Board, which has been established by the WAG to consider in detail how to deal with public spending cuts in Wales. The WAG has also announced new regulations designed to improve efficiency in managing school budgets. From next April, maintained schools will receive a three-year budget forecast rather than the present single-year forecast and any schools recording surpluses above a defined level will have their budgets capped and clawed back.


There is an alternative

The NASUWT believes there is an alternative to public sector cuts that could damage education in Wales blight the lives of thousands of young people and affect jobs and services.

The NASUWT believes that deep public sector spending cuts, which will hit the poorest hardest, are not an inevitable response to the global economic downturn. Rather than cutting jobs and public services, which will only hamper Wales’ economic recovery, the NASUWT is advocating the introduction of the ‘Robin Hood Tax’, a tiny charge that could be levied on all global financial transactions and that it is estimated could raise £2.3 billion per year for public finances.

This would also ensure that those who caused the financial crisis – the bankers – would be the ones picking up the bill.

Go online: www.nasuwt.org.uk/championingeducation.


Cuts Concern

In September, Wales TUC joined trade union leaders in Scotland and Northern Ireland and called for their respective governments to collaborate in highlighting widespread concern over the UK Government’s spending plans. The labour movement across the country stands firmly behind the serious issues outlined in the statement, which bring the devolved nations together collectively around the concerns that have been raised in Wales by union and community leaders, working people and the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) since the formation of the new UK Coalition Government in May.

There is a growing groundswell of real concern over jobs, public services and public spending plans that jeopardise fragile economic recovery.

There is a growing consensus that the cuts are too fast and too deep, that real hardship will be imposed upon the poorest communities and that people on the lowest incomes and ordinary working families will bear the brunt of a crisis started by irresponsible greed in the city.


What you can do

• Visit www.nasuwt.org.uk/championingeducation for the latest updates on the NASUWT’s campaign against the cuts.
• Write to your MP and local councillor asking them to endorse the NASUWT’s campaign against the cuts.
• Inform the NASUWT of any information you receive from local authorities on any plans for efficiency savings. This will ensure the Union negotiators are kept fully informed of the current situation across Wales. Local Secretaries should be your first point of contact with any concerns you may have.

(Logo: Championing Education)

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