"We are sliding backwards, conditions were improved because Councils could not get the good quality staff, now the cuts are being used to procure a quick win to reduce the staff budget by changing their staff terms and conditions. All that will happen is councils will in future be staffed with inexperienced under qualified people."
"Witholding increment payments could be an unsustainable way of meeting budget gaps and could increase the chance of staff leaving and the numbers of agency placements. It may also make other employers relatively more attractive. Capping redundancy payments at no more than a year's pay may mean that when experienced staff are put at risk in restructuring exercises (who have enough service and are close to hitting the cap) there is little added incentive to persuade them not to take redundacy as they know that if put at risk in again in a few years time there will be no recognition of their additional service."
"A wage freeze followed by an 18% cut for frontline workers has resulted in high levels of workplace stress sickness and an increase in customer complaints about the service they are receiving."
"My council has taken measures to assist in dealing with the reduction in available money. It does appear to have done a lot tio maintain jobs and does not appear to be in the poor state of other authorities. The changes were not welcome but changes were anticipated. You would hope that some time in the future that changes can restore some of the imbalance."
"We have to be realistic about this - given that staffing represents such a high proportion of local government costs and accepting expenditure will reduce - compromising terms & conditions may be an acceptable way to mitigate the number of job losses."
"The council has talked about reducing our hours from 37 to 35 a week but since they announced it several months ago we have not heard anything else. At the same time they also talked about not paying us for the first day of sickness absence but again there is no news on this. Some colleagues are finding this uncertainty very unsettling."
"Difficult times, but leadership don't quite know what they are doing. They tend to re-act, rather than analyse and take appropriate, considered action based on stats, proper staff consultation and research."
"Despite the fact that my salary has been reduced, I do understand the reasons why. Income from central government has been reduced and in reality how can this be made up? A large element of cost is the salary bill. I'm not happy about it, but I AM pragmatic. Overall, I'm sure it helps save jobs and frontline services."
"I am a very senior manager and appreciate the political significance of delivering cuts in salaries for senior staff whilst at the same time as reducing the headcount elsewhere in the organisation. The overall impact though has been negative and I believe staff only remain because there are not many other options for them."
"As a long server with 30 years local government service I have seen many changes however these changes do not encourage loyalty, commitment etc. Younger generation will go were there are better benfits/perks etc. Local government had a good pension benefit that attracted people and retained them. But not anymore. We are losing expertise/knowledge at an alarming rate."
"Changes to terms and conditions are often necessary to reflect the changing environment within which we work so there should be some changes which are acceptable & should be welcomed eg mobile working/homeworking & their impact."
"It is very difficult to assess whether the changes have improved the finances of the council. For staff changes have been removal of flexible hours working for third tier managers which was a perk so accept that work evenings and weekend with no gain, and everyone tends to be working longer hours anyway. Pay was frozen in our authority for 4 years. This year we get 1% but parking charges are being brought in which easily wipe that out. This comes on top of a pay review that cut salaries in 2011. Recruitment to some posts is more difficult. So in all it feels quite grim but we feel lucky to still have a job!"
"Our terms and conditions are meaningless if employers, particularly individual employers, can simply pick and choose which ones they wish to uphold, and dispense with or change the others as it suits them."
"Most changes are brought about by the constant need to reorganise management structures to meet the deficit faced by staff not being replaced."
"The danger is a crude 'performance related pay' approach or a scaling back of sick pay benefits. Neither of which are proven to a) save money b) motivate people to improve performance. In fact both can increase costs if poorly designed, implemented and run. Other issues such as mileage rates, as with the Leeds proposals, are just the natural way to go abnd should be adopted more widely."
"The changes made to mileage and travel allowances make little difference to the overall council budgets, however made a big difference to mine and colleagues take home pay. I felt it was just a chance for senior management to reduce pay and conditions whilst blaming the economy!"
"These changes only ever work one way and because they are in many ways 'hidden' cuts they tend to be more ruthless than the visible pay freezes and job re-evaluations we have had to put up with to date. Very few people work in local government for the money, if the terms and conditions are decimated too what incentives remain?"
"A lot of the terms & conditions in local government are outdated and in need of a review."
"Local Government employees appreciate that savings need to be made and support the general principles but the constant deterioration of pay, terms and conditions does nothing to attract and retain good quality employees to work in local government. Attracting quality graduates to professions like social work and teaching remains crucial. The erosion of T&Cs does this support this aim."
"Would be helpful to have a national position agreed on the implementation of annual increments as well as a more simplified pay scale range. There are too many different schemes and uniformity would help across the sector, that way market supplements could be used when justified by lack of response by the market."
"I feel that we in local government should look more closely at how the private sector works and be realistic when comparing our terms and conditions and those in that sector."
"I am a senior manager in my council. The changes to terms and conditions have affected by ability to run my service economically. In addition this has seriously affected staff morale. The corporate centre who implemented these changes did not consider fully the impact on frontline services and had the view that one size fitted all. This was not the case and other services similar to my own have suffered as a result."
