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Unions claim widespread support for pensions strike
Workers are today joining picket lines outside schools and public buildings as four unions take action in protest over changes to their pension arrangements. The day kicked off with a Today show debate in which presenter Evan Davis pressed Francis Maude on whether public sector pensions are "untenable". See Andrew Sparrow's transcript of the exchange on the Politics live blog. My colleague Paul Owen is hosting our live coverage of strike day, our correspondents are joining marches and demos around the country, while also keeping an eye on which services are affected. On the False Economy blog, Nigel Stanley, the TUC's head of campaigns and communications, writes This is not a pension reform – it is simply a pay cut. He says:
"Yet what the government is doing is simple. It is asking public sector workers – already facing a two-year pay freeze, job losses and inflation running higher than it has for more than a decade – to make a further, and even more unfair, contribution to reducing the deficit.
They are doing this by trying to impose an arbitrary extra pension contribution of three per cent of pay on the public sector. This is not a pension reform – it is simply a pay cut.
This comes on top of significant reductions in the value of public sector pensions that blow away the claims that they are unreformed or unsustainable."
One of the key questions being asked today is whether the strikers can maintain public support for their action, have your say in our poll, which is so far showing strong backing for the union members. See also messages of solidarity on Twitter via the hashtag #j30. I love the fact that Julie Hesmondhalgh, Coronation Street's legendary Hayley Cropper, has voiced her support:
"Sending love, best wishes and solidarity to all of you engaged in industrial action today. Let's send a loud and clear message to this government that we'll not lie back and allow them to pick away at everything that matters in this country. We are ready to fight!"
Meanwhile, Unison has a Twitter campaign highlighting the value of public services to coincide with today's strikes. It's asking people to share details of "events in your life where public services have been involved" see @unisontweets
The front page of today's Independent is dominated by the pensions issue (see this pic tweeted by The World at One editor Nick Sutton), which compares average pensions in the public sector - including health workers, teachers and MPs. My colleague Tom Clark's piece on MPs' reluctance to reform their own pensions is a must-read.
You can get involved by telling us which services are closed or restricted today, or explaining why you're on strike.
Today's top SocietyGuardian stories
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• Councils' crackdown on leafleting is 'a blow to liberty'
• Scottish public service review urges radical reform
• Cameron and Miliband clash over NHS
• Minister: Expect 'lukewarm' reaction to elderly care plans
• Clarke fights off critics of legal aid cuts
• Disabled people 'face additional debt difficulties'
• Meghnad Desai: Public spending has not been cut, it's just been stopped from rising
• Simon Hoggart: Quangos rise from flames of the NHS
• Scott Jordan Harris: Come fly with easyJet – unless your disability is inconvenient
All today's SocietyGuardian stories
Other news
• Taxpayers face an £852m bill for redundancies as a result of the government's NHS reforms, according to the Independent. The Labour party leader Ed Miliband challenged David Cameron over the figure at prime minister's questions, and warned that many of the staff being sacked by strategic health authorities and primary care trusts (PCTs) would be re-employed by the GP commissioning consortiums replacing PCTs. But the prime minister insisted the shake-up would save £5bn by cutting bureaucracy.
• Baby P case social workers Gillie Christou and Maria Ward have won the right to appeal against an employment tribunal panel ruling on their sackings, reports Community Care. Sharon Shoesmith, who herself has won compensation for her sacking as Haringey's children's services director over the Baby P case, was at the hearing to support her former co-workers.
• Mental health social work in Scotland could be facing a crisis, reports Community Care, due to substantial cuts in the number of staff training to be mental health officers, amid rising levels of retirement. It says Scottish government figures show the number of trainee MHOs has tumbled from 105 in 2008 to 45 in 2011, while the number retiring each year has jumped from eight in 2009 to 22 this year. And as of 31 March 2011, 70% of the MHO workforce were aged 45 or older.
• The town of Stony Stratford, near Milton Keynes, is set to follow the example of New York and become the first in Britain to ban smoking on its streets, according to the Telegraph. It says a proposed bylaw would outlaw smoking in all public places, and anyone caught lighting up in the historic market town would face a fine.
• A charity based in Brixton, south London, is to be closed down after a report showed it spent only 21% of its 2008-09 income on charitable activity and used charitable funds to pay parking fines and legal fees, reports Third Sector. Angell Town Community Project was set up to provide children's play schemes, care for the elderly and assistance with housing issues to residents of a local housing estate and its surrounding area.
On my radar ...
• The Local Government Association conference, which is continuing in Birmingham today. Andrew Lansley was the first big speaker today. Southwark council leader Peter John tweets:
"Andrew Lansley now speaking at LGA conference - ripple of applause to welcome him - will make a nice change for him."
Ed Miliband is addressing the conference this afternoon and the "headline set" (thanks @ajrhayman) will be by Eric Pickles later - wonder whether he'll get a ripple of applause.
I chuckled at this tweet from Pete Robbins, a Labour councillor in Lambeth:
"According to current speaker at #LGconf11 I am now Gandalf, not Bob the Builder. I have no idea what he is talking about."
Keep up with the latest via the Twitter hashtag #lgaconf11
• A moving blogpost from Jon Snow, who has been researching a Channel 4 Dispatches programme about the country's housing crisis:
"This month I have spent hours in flats and houses in which you would not leave a dog for an hour. I have smelt the dank fungi that leaches its way across the walls of a two-bedroom flat in Rochdale and wandered between rows of garden sheds to the West of London in which rafts of men live two, three, and four, to a shed. At night you hear the voices in the dark, see the chinks of light through the boards, hear the clank of cooking pots as they prepare supper at the end of a working day.
It perplexes me that society can be so consumed with the state of education and health provision in Britain, and yet turn so active a blind eye to the true state of where people actually live."
The programme, Landlords from Hell, is due to air next Monday, 4 July, at 8pm.
• Interesting thoughts on the state of public finances from the Flip Chart Fairy Tales blog. Recession or not, the public sector would have needed to cut its costs, writes Rick:
"That a gap between government revenues and spending was opening up in western economies is something that has been known for sometime. Left-wingers blame the bankers for the mess we are in and right-wingers blame Gordon Brown. But, though the recession has made the public finances much worse, we would have had to deal with the widening gap between spending and revenue sooner or later.
We have three options; raise taxes, increase our debt or cut the cost of social provision and public services. The solution will probably be a combination of all of these. Britain will be a place of higher taxes, higher debt, less generous welfare provision and pared down public services.
Some of those on strike today may want the public sector to stay the size that it is now, with the pay and benefits that it currently provides. But it can't and it won't. Sooner or later, the cost of public services has to come down. If this government doesn't manage it, the next one, whoever they are, will have to."
• A great collection of tweets on NHS reform from Health Policy Insight editor Andy Cowper (who rounds them up on his blog). I particularly liked number 4:
"When utterly redisorganising NHS, remember to demonise managers as 'bureaucrats'. This will make them keener to implement your NHS reforms."
• Excellent curation by Rich Watts rounding up coverage of the Dilnot report
• A fascinating study from UCL's Constitution Unit, which looks at the influence of select committees. It finds that a third of committee recommendations calling for significant policy change are implemented by government, but "committees' main form of influence may not be in making recommendations at all, but in 'generating fear' in government". Selective Influence: The Policy Impact of House of Commons Select Committees examined the work of seven select committees from 1997 to last year, taking in more than 50 interviews with ministers and senior officials. Report co-author Dr Meg Russell, the unit's deputy director, said:
"Select committees are well respected. But there is wide scepticism about the extent to which they influence policy, and some believe that committee reports are routinely ignored by government. Our research shows that this is not true: many committee recommendations find their way into policy.
Our interviews found that select committees can sometimes catalyse opinion and act as a tipping point in a debate, as when the Health Select Committee intervened in the smoking ban debate in 2005" added Dr Meghan Benton, report co-author. "But most importantly committees have a deterrent effect: government insiders often think 'how would this look if exposed by the committee', and change policy accordingly. This key form of influence is largely invisible."
• Simon Guilfoyle, a police inspector in Wolverhampton, who is holding a "virtual meeting" on Twitter tonight. Between 7.30pm and 8.30pm, residents in the town will be able to ask questions of @InspGuilfoyle, or follow his replies using the hashtag #AskInspG
On the Guardian Professional Networks
• Live Q&A from 1pm on corporate social responsibility and social enterprises: How can your social enterprise engage with big business for mutual benefit?
• Could we replace libraries with book-sharing clubs, asks Nesta
• Delays to NHS reform should be used for a remodelling of how health and social care work together, according to King's Fund senior fellow Richard Humphries
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