Wednesday, 10 October 2007

UCATT Reaction to Comprehensive Spending Review

Construction union UCATT have welcomed key parts of the Governments three year Comprehensive Spending Review.

The Government new commitment to increasing the supply of social housing has been reinforced with the publication of the CSR. The commitment to be building 45,000 new socially rented homes by 2010-11 is to be welcomed. Allocating $500 million for a new housing and planning delivery grant to encourage local authorities to speed up housing and planning is also a positive step.

Alan Ritchie general secretary of UCATT, said: “The CSR has allowed the Government to put meat on the bones of its ambition to build more social housing. However these initiatives must be the start not the end of this process. Even greater resources are essential to end the misery of homelessness and overcrowding for thousands of families.”

However UCATT are gravely concerned about what the possible affects of a 5 per cent cut in real terms at the Department of Work and Pensions, will have on the Health and Safety Executive. The HSE has been suffering real term cuts year on year since 2002.

The HSE have already planned 283 redundancies by March 2008, if the DWP’s funding cuts are mirrored in the HSE then further job losses are expected. This is particularly serious for the construction industry. Seventy-seven construction workers lost their lives in 2006/7 a 30 per cent increase on the previous 12 months.

Mr Ritchie, said: “It is imperative that key services like the HSE are properly funded. The final detail of the CSR will reveal whether our lobbying about the HSE has been successful; this is not about cutting office bound pen pushers. HSE inspectors protect our members. If further cuts occur at the HSE construction workers will literally pay with their lives.”