Motion A in the name of Councillor Ryan:
This Council notes the spending commitments outlined in the one-year spending review
This Council regrets that:
· The Chancellor failed to address the systemic underfunding of local Councils, opting instead for a series of one-off measures and further transferring the burden of paying for essential services to local Council Tax payers who have in many cases already been hard hit by the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and years of Tory austerity.
· The Spending Review announced a £2.2bn increase in Councils’ Core Spending Power. Of this sum, £1.5bn is assumed to come from Councils increasing Council Tax by 5% - the maximum the Government will allow without a referendum. Only £600m of this is labelled as new money with £300m of it recycled from previous spending commitments.
· The Government has not brought forward a plan to reform funding and provision of adult social care as promised and instead has given councils the power to raise a further adult social care precept – it assumes that this will be raised within the Core Spending Power increase. The precept can increase by 3% for 2021/22, but by using the ability to raise Council Tax as a means to generate income for adult social care, it is not linking to need. Those areas that can generate more Council Tax can raise more funding.
· While the Government has provided significant additional funding for 2020/21, this still leaves a significant shortfall and the Government continues to break its promise to ‘do whatever it takes’ to support public services tackling the pandemic, including fully reimbursing Councils and schools for additional costs and reduced income
· The Spending Review did not include additional funding for public health. This runs contrary to addressing the stark health inequalities exposed by COVID-19 and levelling up our communities. Keeping people healthy and well throughout their lives reduces pressure on the NHS and social care.
· The Government has not temporarily removed the No Recourse to Public Funds condition. This would reduce public health risks and ease the pressure on homelessness services by enabling vulnerable people to access welfare benefits, who are currently unable to do so because of their immigration status. The Chancellor also failed to commit to making permanent the £20 a week supplement to Universal Credit that has been crucial to protecting people from poverty.
This Council condemns:
· The wage freeze imposed on 2m public sector workers including firefighters, the police, teachers and local authority staff. Many of these workers have kept the country going during the pandemic and deserve more than a real term pay cut.
This Council believes:
· That only with the right funding and freedoms, can councils lead local efforts to level up the stark inequalities the pandemic has exposed and level up the economy so that it benefits everyone.
This Council resolves to ask the Chief Executive to write to:
1. The Local Government Association to urge a vigorous campaign for a long term local government funding settlement, for reform of adult social care and adequate funding of children’s social care, education and social housing in the context of a new settlement reversing the centralisation of powers and decision-making that has been evident even before the pandemic.
2. The borough’s three MPs urging that they oppose the public sector pay freeze and support efforts to secure the necessary funding and freedoms for local authorities.
3. Thérèse Coffey MP, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, calling on her to make the £20 a week Universal Credit supplement permanent.
Motion B in the name of Councillor Drennan:
That this Council notes:
1. On Tuesday 6October 2020, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) received a letter from the Department for Education saying that ministers have decided to end the Union Learning Fund from March 2021.
2. The Union Learning Fund (ULF) was set up in 1998 to support trade unions to widen access to learning and training in workplaces for both union members and non-members. The fund supports workplace projects across England, and is coordinated by the TUC.
3. Each year around 200,000 workers are supported into learning or training with union support through the ULF and the TUC. These learners undertake all sorts of job-relevant learning and training, including basic literacy and numeracy, ICT skills, apprenticeships and traineeships, vocational training, continuing professional development and many other informal and formal courses.
4. In 2019–20, the ULF was worth £12 million. If upheld this decision will effectively end union-brokered skills training, and will undermine key government skills and retraining priorities at a crucial moment for our economy.
This Council understands that:
1. Union learning reaches people that other Department for Education programmes do not reach.
2. There is an independent evaluation of the Union Learning Fund every two years. It was most recently evaluated by the University of Exeter in 2018. They spoke to 2,459 learners, and found:
• Over two-thirds (68 per cent) of learners with no previous qualifications got a qualification.
• 47 per cent of those with entry level or level 1 qualifications got a qualification at a higher level.
• Four in five (80 per cent) said they had developed skills that they could transfer to a new job.
• Two in three (62 per cent) said their new skills made them more effective in their current job.
• One in five (19 per cent) said they had been promoted or given increased responsibility and one in 10 (11 per cent) got a pay rise.
3. The 2018 independent evaluation found that union learning provided excellent value for money:
• For every £1 spent on the Union Learning Fund, there is a return of £12.30: £7.60 to the worker, £4.70 to the employer.
• The Union Learning Fund delivers an estimated net contribution to the economy of more than £1.4bn as a result of a boost to jobs, wages and productivity.
• The return to the exchequer (through reduced spending on welfare benefits and other factors resulting from the boost to jobs and wages) is £3.57 for each £1 spent on the Union Learning Fund.
• The £12 million government funding levered in an additional £54 million from employers, unions and training providers in 2019–20.
4. The government has said it will put reskilling workers at the heart of its economic recovery plans after the pandemic. In September 2020, the government announced a new fully funded entitlement to achieve a first level 3 qualification, delivered through the National Skills Fund. Union learning is ideally placed to support this aspiration, in three ways:
• directly, through delivering relevant level 3 courses to workplace learners, which is already a core function of the Union Learning Fund and was assessed as highly effective by the 2018 independent evaluation.
• directly, through enabling those with basic skills to learn and develop, putting them in a position to progress to level 3 skills.
5. Successive governments of all parties have valued this role – and have supported the Union Learning Fund. As government funding, it is paid as a contract and is subject to stringent monitoring requirements. Union Learning Fund money can only be spent on the direct costs of getting working people into learning and skills training, and the associated costs of delivering this programme.
6. ULF projects adapted quickly to delivering online learning and training for workers during the pandemic and have actually surpassed the number of outcomes expected by government since the beginning of April.
This Council resolves to:
1. Express its public support for the continuation of the Union Learning Fund.
2. Raise this issue with our local MPs and encourage them to call on the government to reverse its decision.