STUC welcomes positive budget intervention from Scottish Greens

March 8th 2021

STUC welcomes positive budget intervention from Scottish Greens

March 8th 2021

STUC welcomes positive budget intervention from Scottish Greens but urges Scottish Government to provide adequate funding to meet sectoral public sector pay negotiations.

Responding to the news that the Scottish Greens and the Scottish Government have reached a deal on the 2021-2022 budget STUC General Secretary Roz Foyer said:

“We welcome that the Scottish Greens have intervened in the budget debate to press for a better deal for public workers. All public workers deserve a decent pay rise after years of pay restraint and during this most testing of periods. Whilst the proposed settlement still falls short of what is needed and deserved, it is clear that the Scottish Greens went into the negotiations with Government with public sector pay high on their agenda.

“But revising public sector pay policy is less than half of the story. We now need the Scottish Government to make explicit spending commitments in areas such as health and local government to ensure that sufficient funding is available to allow meaningful pay negotiations to take place. I have no doubt that unions representing workers who have been at the sharp end during the pandemic will continue negotiating and campaigning hard for public sector employers to go beyond what has been announced today.”

Foyer also welcomed the progress on free school meals.

“The proposed extension of free schools meals to all primary aged children is an important step towards our campaign goal of achieving universal provision for all secondary school, primary school and nursery children. We intend to continue that campaign.”