News roundup: The autumn statement and a day of strike
2 December 2011
This week’s news has been dominated by Tuesday’s autumn statement, in which The Chancellor of the Exchequer delivered bleak news for the public sector: pay caps and further job losses.
In his statement Chancellor George Osborne said that the Government could not afford the 2% pay rise for public sector workers once the current two-year pay freeze ends. This would have been disappointing news, although Osbourne claims the rise was being "assumed by government departments".
With unemployment reaching 2.62 million this week, its highest level for 17 years according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the public sector is facing this bleak outlook in light of predictions from the Office for Budget Responsibility's (OBR) Economic and Fiscal Outlook. Published alongside the autumn statement, the OBR revised predictions for job cuts in the public sector upwards to 710,000 (for the period from January 2011 to the first quarter of 2017).
The autumn statement was followed by Wednesday’s strikes which were the biggest in three decades – a mass walkout by public sector workers over pension reforms.
Figures produced by the government late on Wednesday, and cited in The Guardian, showed that 62% of schools had shut for the day, and a further 14% were partially closed. Just 16% of state-funded schools were open as normal.
The Cabinet Office also commented that approximately 900,000 people were on strike across health, civil service and local government alone. Although the final figure for teachers was not available, it suggests the final overall figure could be well over a million.
So a week of major news and action, and one set to dominate the headlines for some time to come.
You can catch our roundup of the week’s news every Friday.