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Minister urges unions to accept government in 'very challenging position' over public sector pay
A minister has urged trade unions to accept that the government is in a “challenging” situation, following a report claiming the pay offers for teachers and nurses could provoke strikes.
Stephen Kinnock, the care minister, was responding to a report in the Times suggesting that public sectors workers could be offered above-inflation pay rises – but with the increases having to be funded from departmental savings, which is opposed by some unions.
In their Times story, Steven Swinford and Chris Smyth say:
Millions of public sector workers including teachers and nurses should be given pay rises of as much as 4 per cent, ministers have been told in a move that will put further pressure on Rachel Reeves.
The Times has been told that the independent pay review body representing 514,000 teachers has recommended a pay rise of close to 4 per cent, while the one for 1.38 million NHS workers has recommended closer to 3 per cent.
The pay rises, for England, are significantly more than the 2.8 per cent that the government budgeted for and are likely to place further strain on public finances. Schools and hospitals will be told to find efficiency savings to help meet some of the costs.
Swinford and Smyth say the NEU and NASUWT teaching unions have both threatened strike action if schools do not get extra funding to pay for the salary increase for teachers. And nurses have also not ruled out further strike action, they say.
Kinnock, who was doing an interview round for the government this morning, confirmed that the government was looking at the pay review body recommendations, and did not deny the figures quoted by the Times.
Referring to the more confrontational approach taken by the Tories, Kinnock told Times Radio the government wanted “a proper grown-up conversation” with unions “where we sit around the table and hammer it out rather than all the performative nonsense that we saw under the previous government”.
He said he hoped that unions would recognise that the government was in a “very challenging position”. He said:
We’re very keen to support working people across the country. But of course, we do need to also ensure that any pay deal that is done is within the fiscal constraints. And it is a very tight financial position. And I’m very hopeful that our colleagues in the trade union movement will recognise that.
Ruth Perry’s sister joins calls to pause proposed Ofsted overhaul
The sister of a headteacher who took her own life after an Ofsted report has accused the government of ignoring a coroner’s findings on her death by failing to change the school inspection regime, Matthew Weaver reports.
Keir Starmer claims tech will take NHS out of ‘dark ages’ as report says A&E care worse than pre-Covid
Good morning. There are just three days of campaigning left before this year’s local elections. In some respects, these are a minor set of local elections. There are no elections in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or London, and there are only about 1,600 council seats being contested. In some years there are more than 8,000 council seats up for grabs in England alone. But the elections have also been described as the most important for a generation, because they are expected to confirm the emergence of Reform UK as a permanent, significant political force. At the very least this would prove that the old, two-party political model is broken, replaced by a four-party system – what the Economist calls a “20-20-20-20” system – Labour, the Tories, Reform UK and the Lib Dems all hovering at around 20% of the vote – or a five-party system, if you include the Greens. Or it could even mean that the Conservative party is on its way out.
Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch have both got campaign events lined up today. Starmer is keen to talk about the NHS and, in a message on social media, he made a bold claim this morning – arguing that Labour is taking the NHS out of “the dark ages”.
Our NHS has been stuck in the dark ages — that ends now.
By using the latest technology and expanding the NHS app, my government will slash waiting lists, get patients seen faster, and save taxpayers money.
Starmer has provided the quote in a news release highlighting figures showing that, by increasing the use of the NHS app, the government is making the NHS more efficient. The Department of Health and Social Care says:
Latest data shows 1.5 million appointments have been saved thanks to the government’s accelerated rollout of the NHS app, which helps patients access treatment more conveniently so that it fits around their lives, rather than the other way round.
Making sure patients get greater power over how and when they can book their treatments and appointments is at the heart of the government’s plans to end hospital backlogs and improve care through the Plan for Change.
Users can manage appointments, view prescriptions, access their GP health record, and receive notifications at the touch of a button, reducing stress on healthcare services and providing easier access to information and services.
The government has exceeded its first target under the plan to increase the number of hospitals allowing patients to view appointment information via the app up to 85% by the end of March – reaching 87%, up from 68% in July 2024.
This is welcome news, but people may question whether it amounts to the end of the dark ages. It is also a bit Matt Hancock (which is not necessarily a bad thing, but which serves as a reminder that improving the NHS’s use of tech has been a cross-party goal for years).
The DHSC announcement coincides with the release of a report from the Health Foundation, a leading health thinktank, giving a different take on the NHS. It says A&E care in England is “far worse” now than before the pandemic. It says:
This winter saw the NHS in distress. Only 73% of A&E patients were treated within 4 hours, similar to the last two winters, and far below the 95% constitutional standard. The number of people experiencing 12-hour waits before admission reached a new record high. Numbers of A&E diverts and ambulance handover delays were worse than over previous winters …
Overall, the conditions this winter, while severe, were similar to those in recent years and not far above what the NHS can normally expect. Attributing operational problems to external factors such as winter illnesses and higher demand risks offering false comfort about the resilience of the health service.
Our analysis shows the health service performing far worse than before the pandemic and reporting record or near-record levels of operational problems across urgent and emergency care. Ahead of the government’s forthcoming Urgent and Emergency Care Plan, this raises key questions about what might be behind some of the underlying issues contributing to what has now become an annual winter crisis.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Keir Starmer is on a vist in the north-west of England.
11am: Plaid Cymru is publishing its economic plan for Wales at at event in Ammanford.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Morning: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is campaigning in Melton Mowbray in Leicstershire. In the afternoon he will be in Salisbury.
Early afternoon: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in Lincolnshire, where she is due to speak to the media.
2.30pm: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
2.30pm: John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, gives a speech to the Scottish TUC conference.
Afternoon: Starmer is meeting Mohammad Mustafa, prime minister of the Palestinian national authority, in Downing Street.
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