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Peace in our time?

The First Minister hasn't exactly stood himself on aircraft steps waving today's Memorandum of Understanding between the WLGA and TUC Wales in the air - but the language on all sides is that of a breakthrough.

As reported here back in early November negotiations have been underway for several months to try and find a measure of agreement between councils and unions over how to manage the cuts and efficiencies needed to make ends meet over the coming years.

Today, those negotiations concluded with an MoU (always looks worryingly like an IoU to me but there we go) between the two sides.

In the intervening period, we've had some positive developments. There's Neath Port Talbot's apparently amicable agreement with their staff for a 2% pay cut earlier this month but also some negative ones, Rhondda Cynon Taf's somewhat crass emailed ultimatum to staff to agree to new terms and conditions within four months or face "hundreds of compulsory job losses". When she was asked about it Jane Hutt raised an eyebrow, looked down, jotted a few words on her pad before saying that "it's up to our social partners nationally to help us towards a more positive outcome ... than the one we all heard about last week".

The WLGA are calling today's MoU "a significant achievement"; the TUC are calling it "a hugely significant step forward". So let no one be in any doubt as to its significance, at least for the purposes of a press release.

But what will it mean in practice?

A few initial thoughts. Firstly, the WLGA is very careful not to box itself in with a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies anywhere in Wales. They don't want to tie their members' hands completely when it comes to local negotiations.

A cynic might also say that leaving that door ajar at least means that less unpleasant (but still unpalatable) measures may be more appealing to unions as an alternative to outright job cuts.

So what will those measures involve?

"Areas agreed as appropriate for local consideration of cost reduction measures include car allowances, overtime and weekend working allowances and pay protection / redeployment allowances following organisational change".

This is the much-vaunted "menu of options" that both sides have been trying to get to during the negotiations. In total, eleven separate measures are now on the table, to be implemented locally.

How much of a sacrifice they will be in reality will remain to be seen at this stage but it does appear on first reading that some workers could see a significant hit in their pay packets as the price of avoiding redundancies.

But intriguingly, this doesn't look like a simple zero sum game between compulsory redundancies versus cost saving measures, to be thrashed out between council officers and union reps.

The MoU also contains a provision that "discussions will take place with complete transparency on the local financial position and will consider all avenues for dealing with deficits including service delivery and Council Tax levels".

This would seem to be a significant (yes, that word again) concession on the councils' side. They will now have to "open the books" to the unions, rather than asking them to take the financial position of the council on trust.

A union source says that if the councils want a proper partnership, then they will have to justify why they feel they can keep council tax rises to a minimum while inflicting financial pain on their members. On the face of it, at least, this is unions encroaching on the territory of the elected councillors - something that won't got down well in every town hall in Wales.

It's worth noting that the MoU is extremely detailed in terms of the cost reduction measures as they apply to employees. It's much more vague in terms of changes to service delivery and that potentially thorny area of setting council tax.

All, as they say, will become clearer soon. One thought to leave you with. When the chief executive of RCT council sent out his email to staff, the price he put on avoiding redundancies was as follows:

"...if we introduce a new pay structure following the Council's job evaluation exercise, embrace a series of limited changes to our terms of employment and work hard together to improve the way we do things, compulsory job losses and service cuts can be avoided."

One wonders quite how different this will be compared to the measures announced today. Although the negotiations on the MoU are finally over, there are plenty more to come up and down the country.

Peace in our time? Perhaps.

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