Category: UNISON Campaign
news around UNISON campaigns
Reject the insulting 3.2% National Pay offer – inflation now 3.5%
VOTE REJECT – YOUR PAY MATTERS ‼️
Barnet UNISON is urging every member to REJECT the employers’ 3.2% pay offer for 2025/26. Here’s why your voice – and your vote – matters more than ever:
📉 3.2% Is a Pay Cut, Not a Pay Rise
Inflation has jumped to 3.5% (The Guardian, 21 May 2025). The 3.2% offer won’t even keep pace — it’s a real-terms cut.
🛑 We’ve Already Lost Enough
Local government pay has lost 25% of its value since 2010.
Thousands of frontline staff are struggling to cover rising housing, childcare, and energy bills while employers reject even basic improvements.
💸 There Is Money – It’s Just Hoarded at the Top
In the UK, the 50 richest families now hold more wealth than the poorest 50% of the population combined, which includes over 34 million people. The number of billionaires in the UK has risen from 15 in 1990 to 165 in 2024, with the average billionaire’s wealth increasing over 1,000% during that period. The rich are getting richer — and fast.
Public services are being starved while extreme wealth is left untaxed. It’s time to tax the rich — not make workers pay for the crisis they didn’t cause.
🧨 Always Money for War, But Never for Workers
Government spending on military escalation continues — while schools crumble, council services are slashed, and staff like us are told to tighten our belts.
Our communities need investment, not cuts. We cannot rebuild services on broken wages.
⚠️ This Offer Solves Nothing
- Employers have rejected every call for better working conditions:
❌ No £15/hr minimum
❌ No extra leave
❌ No reduced hours
❌ No term-time flexibility
✊ We Deserve Better
This fight is about dignity, respect, and fairness. We keep services running. We supported our communities through crisis after crisis. Now they expect us to accept less – again.
🗳️ Vote REJECT — and demand a deal that reflects our value and funds public services, not billionaire bank balances.
End.
Mental Health Workers and Service Users Unite to Save Barnet’s Network Service
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Mental Health Workers and Service Users Unite to Save Barnet’s Network Service
We are calling on Barnet Council to protect a lifeline mental health support service—the Network—currently under threat of closure.
The Network provides short-term, therapeutic support and wellbeing workshops to adults experiencing mental health challenges, including anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Operating from Finchley, the service has offered vital support to vulnerable residents while they await access to NHS Talking Therapies.
If this service is withdrawn, many people will be left without support at a time when demand for mental health care is surging. We are deeply concerned that the closure will lead to increased isolation, greater pressure on overstretched NHS services, and worsening mental health outcomes for some of Barnet’s most at-risk residents.
We urge all mental health professionals, service users, carers, and local residents to stand up and defend this essential service. Your voice can make the difference.
Have your say before the consultation closes on 14 July 2025.
🔗 Respond to the consultation: www.engage.barnet.gov.uk/the-network
📧 Email: CAHConsultation@barnet.gov.uk
Together, let’s show Barnet Council that mental health support matters—and the Network must stay.
Notes to Editors.
Contact details: Barnet UNISON on 0208 359 2088 or email: contactus@barnetunison.org.uk
Join the March against Austerity march Sat 7 June
To view flyer click on link below
https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Austerity-March-June-7-2025.pdf
Depot Wednesday meetings for May 2025
To view flyer click on link below
https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/2025.05.02-Wednesday-meeting-leaflet.pdf
Consultants are back – Barnet Council award contract to Peopletoo
Barnet Council issued an email to all Barnet Staff about the announcement that they have contracted a consultancy agency Peopletoo
Our members have long memories of what consultants can do to our public services.
We will never forget what happened to our members in Libraries where almost 55% of the workforce were sacked.
We won’t forget the hundreds of redundancies by Capita with the financial support of Barnet Council when they took over our back-office services in 2013.
Back in the late 2000s staff were told that the consultancy company were called in as a critical friend to help support the Council in the future.
16 years later the damage caused by the promotion of some of those ideas is here with us now.
For those who want to know more about the decision to pay Peopletoo can read the report here
Source: Improvement Partner Contract Award, 9 April 2025
Here are some key facts
The contract is due to commence on May 1, 2025.
The contract is structured in two phases:
- Stage 1: Diagnostic Phase: This phase has a fixed term price of £652,700. The purpose of this stage is for Peopletoo to conduct a thorough analysis of the council’s operations and finances to identify potential savings and improvements.
- Stage 2: Delivery Phase: The contract includes an option for Barnet Council to proceed with a Stage 2 delivery phase. The final budget for this phase is contingent on the findings and recommendations of the Stage 1 diagnostic phase.
- Funding Approval: Barnet Council’s Cabinet approved one-off funding of up to £3 million for both Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the improvement partner contract on February 18, 2025. This funding is allocated from the council’s contingency budget for the 2025/26 financial year.
Barnet UNISON hopes that lessons on the use of consultants have been learnt.
Barnet UNISON will be asking for details about Stage 1 shortly.
Keep an eye out in future eNews.
End.
“3.2% is not good enough – members deserve better!”
The news is that the response of the employers to the joint trade union National Pay claim for £3,000 is 3.2%.
Barnet UNISON members can view what 3.2% means to their grade by clicking on the link below
https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/2025/04/24/national-pay-offer-3-2/
UNISON members know that their pay has fallen behind the cost of living and that they are “all now working one day a week for free.”
If we continue to fail to negotiate a pay award that directly deals with the cost-of-living crisis, soon public sector workers will be working “two days a week for free.”
We are in the worst cost-of-living crisis in 77 years.
Politicians seeking to confuse and defend poor pay talk about inflation rates falling as if that has improved things for our members.
Speaking to some of our lowest paid members in care homes, depots, and schools, they are seriously struggling to survive on poverty wages.
Inflation may go up and down, but prices are not going down and they keep rising:
- 50% rise in local Bus Fares
- 41% rise in Water Bills
- 22% rise in Stamp prices
- 18.4% rise in Energy Bills
- 16% rise Rail Cards
- 14% rise in Tuition Fees
- 4.99% rise in Council Tax
- 4.6% rise in Rail Fares
Whilst the poor are getting poorer, and the rich are getting richer.
We have been here before in 2009 our Barnet UNISON Branch Secretary set out his serious concerns in a letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown 24 June 2009
“Barnet Council has made efficiency savings of £80.9m over 7 years, £58.8m in the last 5 years”
https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/NO_PRIMEMINISTER_0.pdf
15 years ago, Barnet UNISON had concerns about poverty, privatisation and the emergence of the Far-Right politics. In Barnet Council we had hundreds of redundancies for several years as the Council claimed they were not being funded. Things haven’t changed and we had our first round of redundancies last December due to the current financial crisis.
What is clear is that the voices of our members across the Council across workplaces, be it a school, a depot, care home or day centre need to be heard and LOUDLY.
Barnet Council is lobbying the government for more funding, but there needs to be more pressure than that. We all need to add our voices for more funding
We are asking our members to sign the following Petition to Angela Rayner (who used to be a UNISON rep). This petition is not just for our members but can be signed by members’ family and friends or anyone who wants to see an end to the destruction of public services.
end.
National Pay Offer – 3.2% more news to follow………….
UNISON comment on Barnet Council Pension Fund Agenda Item 17
On Wednesday 2 April 2025 at Barnet Council Pension Fund Agenda item 17 “Rectification of situation pertaining to prepayments and subsequent repayments between the Council and the Pension Fund”
Below are UNISON comments on the issues contained within the above report:
1. Unlawful Prepayment:
A prepayment of £20,477,000 made in 2020 may have been unlawful. While legal in principle, there’s no documentation showing it was authorised under the Council’s scheme of delegation or approved by any council committee or the Pension Fund Committee. This indicates a serious lack of internal control and proper authorisation.
2. Additional Payments and Repayments:
There were issues with additional payments and repayments between the Council and the Pension Fund, described as “unlawful payments into and out of the Barnet Pension Fund”.
The report discusses options for rectifying this, indicating that the initial actions were incorrect.
3. Lack of Documentation:
The inability to find documentation for the prepayment raises concerns about record-keeping and financial oversight
4. Risk of Tax Implications:
There’s a potential risk of tax liabilities arising from the various rectification options. The council is seeking clarification from HMRC, but the advice received indicates they are proceeding at their own risk.
5. Governance Concerns: The report highlights concerns about governance and the need to clarify the separation between the Pension Fund and the council as an employer.
In summary, the report reveals significant financial mismanagement issues, including potentially unlawful payments, inadequate documentation, and tax risks.
You can listen to the discussion at the start of the meeting here https://aisapps.mediasite.com/AuditelScheduler/Player/Index/?id=9441bcf4-2e3b-41f0-9fe0-7546f554ceaa&presID=588094cfbe6449019e339905e96970fa1d
The next Pension Fund Committee is 16 June 2025
Message to all of our Barnet UNISON schools members
Dear Barnet UNISON
In early February, Barnet UNISON wrote to every school in Barnet seeking permission to speak to our members about the new School Support Staff National Negotiating Body (SSSNB) which will be established for all school support staff in England, including those working in academies and multi academy trusts.
You can view the letter to your school by clicking on the link below.
https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/2025.01.20-Letter-to-headteacher.pdf
Our Assistant Branch Secretary Beverley Berwick has already started visiting schools speaking with members and the Head about the SSSNB.
This is likely to be the biggest change of our members in schools in a generation which is why we are keen to speak to our members.
If you are interested in helping to arrange a visit in your school, please email contactus@barnetunison.org.uk and request a visit.
End.
Background:
Read more about SSSNB click on link below
https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/SSSNB-members-briefing.pdf