Graph of the week - Tax Revenues by Country

With all the controversy about tax avoidance and evasion we thought it would be interesting to see how the UK’s tax revenue compared with other countries.

So we went to the OECD website, found some data for 2013, downloaded it, and then did a graph.

The graph above shows the tax revenue in dollars per capita. The UK is highlighted in blue. It shows that relative to other countries the per capita tax revenue is low. The graph shows that comparatively speaking the UK is not a high tax country in terms of tax revenue. So it's no wonder we are seeing such savage cuts to public services.

It is not possible to say conclusively that this because of tax avoidance and evasion, but it does leave you wondering.....

UNISON Joins Campaign to save 190 Lollipop Wardens

UNISON campaigners have teamed up with joined Jack Dromey MP, the GMB and Unite to save Birmingham’s valuable school crossing wardens.

190 jobs are at risk due to Government cuts to Birmingham City Council, which is having to find hundreds of millions of pounds in savings next year alone. Jack Dromey MP, along with UNISON, GMB and Unite, are calling on Birmingham City Council to protect the roles along with the city’s children.

UNISON NEC member and local Labour candidate Mary Locke braved the freezing conditions to speak to parents in one Birmingham school about the proposed cuts.

Mary said:

“We are fighting to protect our wardens because they protect our children. They play a crucial role in not only keeping our children safe in and out of school, but in educating the many students they see every day in the importance of road safety. They do a fantastic job and I am proud to represent UNISON in challenging the Council to rethink this decision.

Mark New, Regional Organiser, added:

“I would like to thank Jack Dromey MP, the GMB and Unite for the terrific partnership working that this campaign has benefited from. We must not forget that we are facing this problem in the first place because this Tory Government is punishing Birmingham with excessively heavy cuts, but we must challenge Birmingham City Council to make the right decision in not putting a price on our children’s’ safety.”

Tom Watson MP says "Don't let the Tories kill off the NHS"

In yesterday's Sunday Mirror newspaper West Bromwich West MP Tom Watson penned an article titled "Don't let the Tories kill off the NHS" and quoted some UNISON research about the lack of pay rises for NHS workers

His article started:

The NHS is sick. Sick of being stripped, bullied and undervalued. Our most beloved national institution can’t survive another five years of Cameron. Another five years of cutbacks and crisis under his “care”.

This is the man who vowed he’d cut the deficit, not the NHS. Well, he lied.

The Tories plan to slash spending on public services to levels not seen since the 1930s. This would put us on an equal footing with Mexico and Korea, countries where up to half the health service is privately funded.

Our A&Es have just endured the biggest meltdown in history. A record number of patients waited more than four hours for emergency care before Christmas. This is one of more than a dozen care standards broken under Tory management.

And let’s not forget the silent heroes battling to keep the NHS together. From nurses to cleaners, they worked round the clock while many of us relaxed over Christmas and New Year. 

Tom's article is spot on and to read the rest of it go here.

Graph of the week - is the change in council spending power a political fix?

Just before Christmas the central government grants to councils in England were announced, with the minister saying there was a funding cut of only 1.8% to councils. But as with everything with this spin obsessed government, the devil is in the detail.

The 1.8% figure looks at all 354 councils, but 200 of those councils are (small) district councils that make up less than 6% of total council spending. Hence the 1.8% average cut figure is achieved by including these councils with very small budgets, so the 1.8% figure is a gross distortion.

So if we only look at the 154 large councils (London Boroughs, Metropolitans, Unitaries and County Councils) this actually makes up over 94% of all spending by councils and it gives a far more realistic picture.  

The graph above shows the cut for each of these large councils, and the colour of the bar shows which party controls that council. Note the clear picture that the largest losers are mainly (red) Labour councils, and the gainers are mainly (blue) Tory councils.

Is this a political fix? Take a look at the graph, and decide for yourself.

Notes: 

1. Due to space limitations on the vertical axis not every council is labelled but every council is shown by a  coloured bar.

2. To see the actual figures for every council, look at the spreadsheet used to create the graph which can be found here: http://bit.ly/1z2vT9w

Birmingham City Council Cuts

Following this morning’s announcement from Birmingham City Council, it is clear that they are being left with little option but to make drastic savings in order to balance the books.


The cuts to services are wide spread and will have a massive impact on the people of Birmingham.  These cuts will not only lead to job losses that will be devastating to the workers; but they will impact on the services that the public use daily, they will have a considerable impact on vulnerable people. The impact will be felt across the city and region as a whole as millions of pounds will be taken out of the local economy.


Just days before Christmas our members and their families are being left in the situation of not knowing if they will have a job next year.


Ravi Subramanian, UNISON West Midlands Regional Secretary said:


“UNISON are clear that these job losses are as a direct result of this Tory-led government. They are targeting councils in the North and the Midlands with massive cuts to government grants. Government cuts means Birmingham has a cut in spending power of over £145 per dwelling, whilst in the Tory run Buckinghamshire, Windsor, Hampshire and Wokingham they actually have an increase in spending power. How can that be fair?


With Christmas around the corner and just days after the autumn statement this festive gift from the government to Birmingham and our members lays out their priorities clearly, give money to the millionaires not the millions.


The people of Birmingham deserve better than these spiteful and politically motivated cuts, and they need to make their views known through the ballot box at the General Election”

Graph of the week - Government borrowing predictions are way off

This week's Autumn Statement from the Chancellor George Osborne exposed what a mess he is making of the economy, and the graph above illustrates just one of the many things he has got wrong.

In 2010 he said that austerity would work and drive down government borrowing. The blue bars show his 2010 forecast for driving down government borrowing. But austerity strangled the economic recovery and we had a double dip recession, which meant income from taxes dropped off. And in turn that meant borrowing had to go up to plug the gap.

The red bars shows the actual borrowing that has happened and shows clearly George Osborne has got it badly wrong.

Graph taken from an article on the Independent website here.

Public Service Workers paying the Price of Austerity

Commenting on the Chancellor's Autumn Statement,  Ravi Subramanian, UNISON West Midlands Regional Secretary said:

"It is sickening that Osborne is once again expecting public service workers to work more for less and pay the price of his failed plan to revive the economy. Austerity has not worked and despite this the Government is going ahead with more cuts which will inevitably mean more pay freezes.

There is nothing in his statement that will support workers and the lowest-paid.Nothing to help the million of public sector workers who have seen the value of their pay fall by at least 10% since this coalition came to power.

Workers are paying the price of austerity while the rich and privileged share the benefits. The Government has nothing but contempt for the hardworking people in this country. The truth is four years of austerity has caused untold damage to the economy, to the public services families rely on and to the daily lives of millions of people. 

An increasing number of full time public sector workers have to borrow money every months and rely on second jobs to survive.And the rise of precarious jobs is hardly something to be proud of. More people work part-time because they can't find full-time jobs, more people are on precarious zero-hour contracts.

The recovery the Government has been boasting about is still not being felt by workers. A recovery that only benefits the few privileged in this country is no good for the economy and for workers. The economy is not safe and nor are workers whose jobs are increasingly insecure.

The hardest-hit are communities and the most vulnerable, This was the Government's last chance to reverse the cuts. They will now pay the price at the next election.

West Midlands holds it breath for autumn statement

The West Midlands region has been badly affected by this government’s failure to deal with the economy and they repeatedly try to tell us that things are getting better and we are all in this together, but where is the evidence for this?


As the country holds it breathe in anticipation for today's autumn statement UNISON members are wondering if finally they will benefit from the so called recovery.


Ravi Subramanian, UNISON West Midlands Regional Secretary said:


“UNISON members and the public as a whole across the west midlands are fed up of this government’s failure to deal with the economy and support hard working families. This will be the chancellors forth attempt at reviving the economy and his last chance to ditch austerity and stand up for hard working people.


All they've announced so far is recycled money. Existing money which was already allocated and budgeted for, not additional funding. Instead of investing and improving the NHS, this Government opted for a damaging £3bn top down reorganisation that the public did not vote for.


Their approach to public spending has been a disaster. The plan did nothing to reduce the deficit and left our public services in dire straits. Hundreds of thousands of public-service workers lost their jobs and the promise to cut the deficit not the NHS was just empty words.


But in a desperate attempt to avoid negative headlines months before the general election, the Government will try to use the same tricks again.


Everything UNISON Said in 2010 has been proved right. It is obvious the government's plans on the economy did not work: it did not reward workers, it penalised them; it did not protect the most vulnerable, it put them and more rise - and it certainly was not fair"

Graph of the week - deficit is due to reduced taxation not too much spending

This week's graph of the week comes from The Resolution Foundation's report In The Balance: Public Finances in the Next Parliament. It is figure 15 on page 36.

What this graph clearly shows is:

1. The massive deficit in public sector finances that happened in 2008 was not because of an increase in spending, but due to a huge fall in tax receipts because of the recession caused by the global banking crash.
2. There has been a levelling off in spending in absolute terms, but given that this does not include inflation and increased demands due to an ageing population this actually amounts to massive cuts to services.
3. The best way to fix the deficit is to increase tax receipts so they match spending.

The best way the government can do this is to:

• have an economic plan that delivers good well paid jobs (as oppose to the zero hours low paid jobs that currently exist) so that workers then pay income tax and VAT and help build tax receipts.
• reverse the cut to the 50p tax rate for high earners.
• ensure that tax dodging companies like these pay their fair share

Spending cuts that hit the poor and the vulnerable are unnecessary and avoidable. There is a better way to close the deficit.

Police Front Counter Closures

We were shocked to hear the announcement yesturday from the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner of the extent of the cuts to take place to police front desks.

 

A review had been taking place but the announcement that twenty seven are set to close was unexpected. The closures will happen over the next 12 months and will mean that just ten front offices will remain open between 8am to 10pm and only Birmingham Central will remain open 24/7.

 

Our Regional Organiser for Police and Justice, Charlie Sarell said in response:

 

“UNISON is of course worried about the extent of these cuts and the service this will provide to the general public. The reasoning behind this review and the extent of the closures is clear, it is the fault of the Conservative government. The ongoing cuts to police funding is penalising the West Midlands unfairly, while some County forces in the south are not being affected. UNISON will be working hard to protect our members jobs but given the extent of the cuts we are significantly worried that they and other staff will be facing compulsory redundancies.”

While the Branch Secretary of West Midlands Police branch, Jill Harrison added:

 

“This is going to have a massive impact on our members and all the police staff across the West Midlands. We will be working hard to support all those affected by these significant changes, but this is about more than just jobs, it is going to impact on the local economy too. There is an unemployment issue in the West Midlands and making more people redundant will only make this worse”

 

The details of the announcememt can be found here

Birmingham Diwali Celebrants say no to austerity

Over 270 people at the Birmingham Diwali celebrations on Sunday 18 November signed our anti-austerity postcards asking their local MP to lobby the government to end their damaging policy of austerity.

UNISON (West Midlands) are determined to take our camapign out in to all parts of our communities and it's clear from the event on Sunday when we do, we find lots of people support us.

Birmingham says "no to austerity"

Yesterday UNISON we were out and about in Birmingham city centre taking our anti-austerity campaign to Brummies.

Over 400 people signed our postcards lobbying their local MP for an end to austerity. And we also got 8 people who joined UNISON on the day.

Day by day more and more people are saying they've had enough of austerity.

UNISON anti-austerity campaign hits Solihull

Today UNISON (West Midlands) took our anti austerity campaign to Solihull. Like the people of Cannock, the people of Solihull are keen to sign up our campaign to fight the government's failed austerity measures.

UPDATE: over 350 people signed our anti austerity postcards and we even had one person join UNISON.

Campaigning in Cannock Chase

Despite the rain, 10 regional office staff turned up in Cannock today to campaign for decent public service,s as a follow on from the 20 October Future That Works march in London.

The people of Cannock Chase are keen to sign our petition against Staffordshire County Council's proposed privatisation of education support services.

UPDATE: over 500 people signed up to our campaign!

The fight to save North Solihull Sports Centre crèche

For the last 10 years the North Solihull Sports Centre and the Tudor Grange Leisure Centre have had crèches for people using the facilities.  This was continued when the centres were given to private sector company, Parkwood Leisure to run.  The staff at the 2 crèches were employed by Parkwood but a grant was paid by Solihull MBC to support the service. 

In 2012 the £35,000 grant to Parkwood was offered up as part of the Council’s savings.  It was proposed to entirely close the crèche at Tudor Grange and to only have the crèche at North Solihull open 2 mornings a week.

Solihull UNISON branch has worked hard to stop the closure of the North Solihull facility.  So far the branch has:

• Presented a signature petition from crèche users to the leader of the Labour Group to present at full Council
• Written to the Cabinet Member putting the case for keeping the crèche open
• Met with the council officer responsible for the decision to close in order to understand his rationale and persuaded him see the affected staff to find out the truth and he discovered the information previously supplied to him about usage was inaccurate
• Met with Leanne Byrne, fire-fighter, mum and crèche user.  Leanne had got considerable publicity in the Solihull News and was going to address the full council meeting on 16th October.  UNISON supported Leanne by helping to draw up a questionnaire for completion by the crèche users.  They also agreed to support any demonstration outside the October Council Meeting. Leanne is herself an FBU officer in Handsworth and so is able to draw upon that union for support in her campaign

This is a great example of how a UNISON branch has organised around an issue and involved the community in its campaigning.

The fight still goes one and the branch will be holding a demonstration outside the Council Meeting on 16th October.