Plaid Cymru AM Leanne Wood has called on the Welsh Government to speak out at moves which could rob thousands of public workers of one-third of their redundancy pay.
Leanne Wood, Plaid AM for South Wales Central, said that she feared proposals by the UK Government could have a major impact on civil servants based in Wales.
In a question at the Senedd, Leanne Wood said: “The UK government is seeking to make changes to the Civil Service Compensation Scheme, which governs redundancy and early retirement payments to employees of all government departments, devolved as well as non-devolved, and many other public bodies. The changes would rob thousands of hard-working public employees of a one-third of the value of the redundancy payment they had thought they could expect, as of right.
“Even though Tessa Jowell agreed with the unions in September that talks with officials would be reopened to secure a mutually acceptable outcome, this has not happened and a slightly-improved set of proposals was circulated to all civil servants by permanent secretaries as a fait accompli on Friday, December 4th, without consulting the unions beforehand.
“Given the implications for Welsh Assembly Government, Assembly Parliamentary Service and Assembly Government Sponsored Bodies staff, will the Assembly government make representations to the Cabinet Office for the resumption of negotiations in good faith as a matter of urgency, and will the Leader of the House make time available for this issue to be discussed in plenary as soon as possible?”
Carwyn Jones, responding as Leader of the House, said: “It is important that all channels are kept open to make sure there is a satisfactory solution, particularly for those that may be affected by the scheme.
“Certainly, I will ensure that I investigate the situation and if there is a need to offer a view on behalf of the government then that view will be offered. But at the moment it is a matter for negotiation between the trade unions and UK government.”
