Stoke-on-Trent Council pay cuts for 1,000 workers voted down

Protesters gathered outside council offices in Stoke over potential cuts for StokeCare staff last week

Plans to cut pay for more than 1,000 council staff as part of £9m savings have been voted down.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council's intention to stop extra payments for StokeCare staff working weekends and unsociable hours caused a protest outside its offices last week.

Other budget cuts included closing a number of small group children's homes and a council tax rise of 3.99%.

Full council members voted by 22 votes to 19 against the budget cuts.

Unions had said the plans would affect up to 120 different roles in care home and respite care, as well as customer service workers, library and park teams.

Tony Jones, the regional organiser for Unison, said the plans were in effect a 20% pay cut for members.

A spokesman for Stoke-on-Trent City Council, which is run by a Conservative and Independent coalition, said that as the proposals were not agreed the budget would be discussed at a reconvened meeting on 6 March.

"The budget process includes setting the council tax for the city for 2020-21," a spokesman said.

"Under the Local Government Act 1992, the council has a duty to set council tax for the financial year ahead before 11 March 2020.

"It is the duty of all councillors to come together to set a budget and council tax. There will be many discussions over the coming days to work to reach proposals that can be considered at the reconvened meeting."

Unions say workers will end up losing hundreds of pounds a month if their allowances for working evenings and weekends are taken away

Other proposals had included stopping bank holiday bin collections and closing four local centres.

Leader of the Labour group Mohammed Pervez said the budget plans would hit the "lowest-paid staff".

City Independent councillor Randy Conteh said the alternative to the budget was "much worse and would include more job cuts".

Conservative leader of the council Abi Brown said they were "difficult, but necessary decisions".