Unions have welcomed a United Kingdom Government decision to withdraw regulations aimed at preventing excessive payments in the public sector.
General Secretary of Unison, Christina McAnea said the “perverse” regulations would have hit low-paid workers the hardest.
Ms McAnea said the rules would have affected long-serving Local Government workers who earned just £23,500 ($A42,000) and were made redundant.
“It’s great the Government has finally seen sense and stepped back from this damaging regulation that threatened to blight the retirement of millions of workers,” Ms McAnea said.
“Through no fault of their own, long-serving staff over the age of 55 and facing redundancy would have been hit by the regulation, because they’re obliged to take their pensions if they lose their jobs, and when combined with redundancy payments the final amount could have exceeded the £95,000 ($A170,000) cap,” she said.
Ms McAnea said the union had made repeated submissions to the Treasury that the regulations were flawed, and they would hit ordinary workers.
“Unfortunately, Ministers wouldn’t listen, so Unison had to take them to court,” the General Secretary said.
Deputy General Secretary of Prospect, Garry Graham said the Government had agreed that anyone the cap had been applied to so far should be compensated.
“We said at the time we believed the Government’s approach was both unlawful and chaotic and have been proven right,” Mr Graham said.
A Treasury statement confirmed the regulation had been withdrawn.
“The legislation set a £95,000 cap on exit payments for public sector authorities and offices listed in the schedule,” the statement said.
“After extensive review of the application of the cap, the Government has concluded that the cap may have had unintended consequences and the regulations should be revoked,” it said.
London, 14 February 2021
