NB Council worker pay negotiations are undertaken at a national level through COSLA with the Trade Unions and Scottish Government. Unless the Scottish Government increases the funding currently available to Local Authorities the current pay demands by a number of Council worker sectors are unaffordable within existing budgets, and further strike action is likely. COSLA has already made it clear to both the Scottish Government and the TUs that any agreements on pay beyond those currently on offer, which are not centrally funded, will only be achieved within existing Council budgets at the expense of major cuts in existing services.
Any concerns regarding this should be raised with your local MSPs as it is beyond the ability of the Council to resolve locally, and every Council has been lobbying COSLA, who in turn have been lobbying the Scottish Government to redress the sustained funding cuts in real terms to Council budgets over a number of years.
For further information on the challenges facing Councils, including the effective cuts to Local Authority funding by the Scottish Government, it is worth looking at the latest Audit Scotland Report on Benchmarking of Local Government Performance 2022/2023 which has just been published and can be found at www.improvementservice.org.uk/benchmarking/reports