The return of the exit payment cap - an attack on many local government workers

Journalists have noticed that the much-discussed public sector exit payment cap is not yet in force. It has certainly been a long time coming, but perhaps the journalists haven’t been paying attention over the past five years.

The Tories promised this change in 2015 (when they introduced enabling primary legislation in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015.)

This led to consultation on  draft Regulations in 2016 – and to a flurry of exits by those who were trying to avert the impending cap. I blogged at the time about how, in local government at least, the cap could hit those who were very far from being “fat cats.”

The application of the exit payment cap to long serving members of the Local Government Pension Scheme would deny (for example) social workers made redundant above the age of 55 access to an unreduced pension (which has been promised to those workers, in those circumstances for many years).

When Theresa May’s “strong and stable” Government called a General Election in 2017 they scuppered their own plan as far as the exit payment cap was concerned.

An attention-seeking Tory backbencher then introduced a Private Member’s Bill to purse the same agenda, but that also got nowhere.

When it found time again, the Government consulted afresh on new legislative proposals between April and July of last year. The response to consultation has been awaited now for almost eight months.

In response to this week’s coverage in The Times the Government have apparently now confirmed that they will be responding to the consultation soon. We can anticipate that they won’t have listened to sensible arguments against what they want to do.

UNISON’s 2019 Local Government Conference agreed to renew opposition to this attack upon our members – and our local government employers, the Local Government Association spelt out the damaging implications of the Government proposals in their response to consulation.

Writing as someone whose recent redundancy would have been so much more harmful if the exit payment cap (as proposed) had been in force, I hope that our trade unions will continue to expose and oppose this pernicious attack upon public servants.