Dispute over performance pay is settled

Industrial action by members of public services union UNISON at Breckland Council in Norfolk has been called off following the negotiation of a new pay deal.

Full details of the 18-month settlement have not been published, but it is known to include a 3% cost-of-living pay rise backdated to October 2006 as well as new performance-related pay (PRP) arrangements.

UNISON had balloted its members – who make up more than half of Breckland’s 340 staff – for industrial action following the council’s initial offer of a 2.5% pay increase this year and the introduction of PRP.

With almost 90% of members backing a strike, the union had planned two one-day stoppages – the first of which would have coincided with a meeting of the full council – and an indefinite work to rule.

But weeks of “tough and detailed negotiations”, many of them centring on the introduction of the new PRP scheme this October, produced the agreement earlier this month.

In a joint statement, UNISON and the council said they had worked together to “improve those elements of the scheme that staff felt most strongly about”. Both sides “wanted a scheme that was fair to all staff while being affordable and maintaining quality services to the community”.