Health Minister Trumps Iron Chancellor
Scotland's nurses have won a small, yet very welcome, victory over the implementation of their pay award for 2007 - hip, hip, hooray!
Gordon Brown, the chancellor, announced last week that the pay award of 2.5% would be staged - 1.5% in April and the remaining 1% in November 2007 - thereby reducing its value over a full year to only 1.9%.
Step forward Andy Kerr, Scotland's health minister, who abruptly overturned the decision yesterday by declaring that the Scottish Parliament (which runs the NHS in Scotland after all - not Gordon Brown) would be honouring the pay award in full - no ifs, buts or maybes. Good for him!
Although it does have to be said that the reason for this sudden change of heart and outbreak of in-fighting amongst senior Labour ministers is all too obvious - the Scottish Parliament and council elections are now only 6 weeks away.
And so before anyone gets too carried away with celebrations and mutual backslapping it's as well to remember two vital points:
First, the pay award itself is very poor - and at only 2.5% it is well below the current rate of inflation (see earlier post dated 3 March).
Second, the missing 0.6% (wrestled back from the chancellor and his meanies at Westminster) is worth only £200 a year - on average for full-time hours and before tax - so it's hardly the stuff dreams are made of, or an excuse to declare a new public holiday to celebrate the occasion.
As if to prove the point, Unison (one of the main health unions) issued a press statement saying it was delighted with the announcement. But Unison is, of course, the very same organisation that has sat on its backside over equal pay for years - while many of its nursing members have claims worth several thousand pounds a year, not just a mere £200!
So, the moral of the story is that not everything is as it appears in the media or newspaper headlines - and that sometimes you need to take important public announcements with a very big pinch of salt.
Gordon Brown, the chancellor, announced last week that the pay award of 2.5% would be staged - 1.5% in April and the remaining 1% in November 2007 - thereby reducing its value over a full year to only 1.9%.
Step forward Andy Kerr, Scotland's health minister, who abruptly overturned the decision yesterday by declaring that the Scottish Parliament (which runs the NHS in Scotland after all - not Gordon Brown) would be honouring the pay award in full - no ifs, buts or maybes. Good for him!
Although it does have to be said that the reason for this sudden change of heart and outbreak of in-fighting amongst senior Labour ministers is all too obvious - the Scottish Parliament and council elections are now only 6 weeks away.
And so before anyone gets too carried away with celebrations and mutual backslapping it's as well to remember two vital points:
First, the pay award itself is very poor - and at only 2.5% it is well below the current rate of inflation (see earlier post dated 3 March).
Second, the missing 0.6% (wrestled back from the chancellor and his meanies at Westminster) is worth only £200 a year - on average for full-time hours and before tax - so it's hardly the stuff dreams are made of, or an excuse to declare a new public holiday to celebrate the occasion.
As if to prove the point, Unison (one of the main health unions) issued a press statement saying it was delighted with the announcement. But Unison is, of course, the very same organisation that has sat on its backside over equal pay for years - while many of its nursing members have claims worth several thousand pounds a year, not just a mere £200!
So, the moral of the story is that not everything is as it appears in the media or newspaper headlines - and that sometimes you need to take important public announcements with a very big pinch of salt.
