Three years of cuts have damaged the public sector. Osborne’s renewed commitment to further austerity measures means it is vital we look at ways of stepping up our national campaign.
The government is continuing with cuts that have led to the deepest slump in Britain since the 1870s – we are determined to stop them.
There are hundreds of thousands of human casualties of an austerity programme that has caused:
- 70,000 job cuts across the civil service and related grades since 2010
- Slashed living standards by 16% in real terms.
- Public services continue to be targeted as prisons are threatened with closure and further privatisation, 281 tax enquiry centre offices are earmarked for the scrapheap, and ministers are also aiming to shut DVLA local offices and Department for Education offices.
The chancellor announced in the spending review on 26 June there would be even more pain for public sector workers, including an end to automatic pay progression and a further £11.5 billion in spending cuts and 144,000 more job losses by 2015–16. These austerity measures are piled on top of the £81bn being cut from public spending by 2014.
Further welfare attacks
The government has also proposed 9.5% of further cuts in the welfare budget which will make to more difficult to support people into new work. There will be a new absolute cap on welfare spending meaning that the amount of the welfare budget can’t go up in terms of national spending.
That will include housing benefit, tax credits, disability benefits but not pensions.
A new policy was outlined meaning people would have to be unemployed for over seven days to claim Jobseeker’s Allowance. That will make it more difficult for people to avoid falling into arrears in particularly for large bills like housing and credit cards if they unexpectedly lose their job.
We have shown that more than £50bn has been cut from workers’ wages since the start of the recession and argued in our report Britain needs a pay rise this could provide the answer to the lack of growth in the economy.
Osborne’s roll call of cuts includes:
- 1% limit on public sector pay rises in 2015/16
- £5bn in further central government savings
- 10% budget cuts in justice, Cabinet Office, Treasury, Efra and communities
- 9.5% budget cuts for Department Work and Pensions
- 9% budget cuts at the Department for Transport
- 8% savings at the Foreign Office and Department for Energy and Climate Change
- 7% budget cuts for culture
- 6% budget cuts in Home Office and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
