8. 8. Plaid Cymru Debate: Public Sector Pay

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:08 pm on 23 November 2016.

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Photo of Dawn Bowden Dawn Bowden Labour 5:08, 23 November 2016

Thank you, Chair. I’m sure many of you will remember the issue that arose in Caerphilly council in December 2012, when it came to light that some chief officers had been party to drafting and taking to a council committee a report recommending pay rises of more than 20 per cent for the chief executive and other chief officers. If you were to talk to the hundreds of trade union members at Caerphilly who staged a lunch-time walk out, of course they were angry at the scale of the proposed awards. But what really outraged them was that this had come on the back of a three-year pay freeze for all other local authority staff. It was pleasing that the trade union campaign there did lead to an early settlement of that dispute. They were able to negotiate an agreement, which led to the removal of a substantial part of those pay awards, but this was only possible through the willingness of the Labour group in Caerphilly council to engage constructively with the trade unions, facilitated by the then chair of Caerphilly’s policy and resources scrutiny committee, who now sits in this Chamber as the Assembly Member for Caerphilly. That is the reality of what transpired, and not the distorted version that was given by Caerphilly Plaid in statements to the media today.