UK unprepared for environmental disaster following cuts to science budget
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Version 0 of 1. The country could be unprepared to deal with major environmental disasters because government jobs cuts have got rid of vital scientists and specialist staff, according to a senior public sector union official. Leslie Manasseh, the president of the TUC and deputy general secretary of the Prospect union, has described government ministers as “vulgarians of the highest order” who are trashing public sector staff and destroying vital national assets such as Kew Gardens, the Met Office and the Environment Agency, which deals with flooding. “It’s depressing, because they may only have a majority of 12, but imbued as they are with this incredible, male upper-class confidence, they don’t think that’s fragile at all,” he said. Related: Kew Gardens’ world-class status at risk from ‘slash-and-burn’ job losses Since 2010, 400,000 jobs have been cut from the public sector and 500,000 more are set to be lost in the next five years as part of the government’s clampdown on public sector spending. Job cuts have included the loss of scientists from Kew Gardens and other public bodies, as well as the closure of the Forensic Science Service in March 2011. “If you lose the scientific element of Kew Gardens, then it will become a theme park,” said Manasseh. “If you think back to the floods and ash die-back and consider the kind of problems that are likely to face the country in years to come, [the government] is just not going to be very prepared, because of the view that the only thing of value is if you can make a profit.” Manasseh said the 1% pay freeze imposed by the government on public sector workers was unsustainable. “There are very many senior voices in the public sector and the civil service who know that it’s really creaking at the seams and could fall over frighteningly quickly,” he said. He also criticised the constant barrage of abuse from the government towards public sector workers. “Public sector staff are under enormous pressure,” said Manasseh. “They face another five years of pay restraint. They are facing enormous job cuts. But what is really very difficult for them is the fact that they are not valued.” Manasseh said members of the union in other sectors, such as telecoms or the third sector, feel valued for their skills and their contribution, but that was not the case in the public sector, despite the work of the union’s highly specialised staff. “Our members in the public sector do extraordinary things,” he said. “They are people in the Met Office, which is a world-class service, or Kew Gardens or the Imperial War Museum or the Environment Agency or - and it’s gone now - the Forensics Science Service.” Related: UK braced for more storms and floods Manasseh said a sense of public service was a far greater motivator for such staff than pay. “They don’t do it for the pay because they’ve never been really highly paid,” he said. “They do it out of a sense of public service ethos and they are just being trashed. And that is what is so depressing. One of the most depressing things about this government is its zealotry and lack of interest or awareness or curiosity.” Manasseh is to retire at the end of 2015 from the Prospect union, which represents 30,000 professional, scientific and technical staff working in the public sector. Despite falling union membership, Manasseh said there were still opportunities for unions to grow in the public sector. “It’s more difficult because there aren’t new people coming in, so in a sense we have to reinvent ourselves for existing public servants,” he said. Manasseh also criticised a recent move by the FDA, the union that represents senior civil servants, to extend membership to lower grades of staff in the civil service. “The landscape is less stable in the civil service if there is that kind of free for all,” he said. Sign up here for your free weekly Guardian Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday. Follow us on Twitter via@Guardianpublic |