Cuts to emergency services put staff and communities at risk

#STUC16 The STUC will press the Scottish Government to adequately fund the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and to properly staff their control rooms, currently being cut from eight to three.

UNISON Police Staff’s George McIrvine spoke in support of the FBU motions and drew parallels with the move to a single police force in Scotland.

UNISON reaction to DCC Neil Richardson’s statement to Scottish Parliament

UNISON is calling on DCC Neil Richardson to meet with them to discuss his plans for further job cuts after his words at the Justice Committee of 1st December, wherein he stated it would be wrong of him to say there won’t be further reduction in staff.

George McIrvine, UNISON Police Staff Scotland branch secretary said: ”They have no real strategy as to how they are going to achieve this years savings never mind the next 11 years and that's quite apparent with the current £25 million blackhole. It's not best value for the public purse and it's not what the rank and file officers signed up to do.

We now see a civilian staff workforce who have young family, rent, mortgages and debt; they therefore need to work for the foreseeable future. Redundancy is no longer an option to the majority.

Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority will either have to look at making cuts elsewhere to their budget instead of focussing it all on a small percentage of the civilian staff workforce or finally admit they cannot achieve the Scottish Governments efficiency savings. Chief Constables in England & Wales have been spoken out about such unrealistic goals and budget cuts, why can't Scottish senior police officers do the same?”