Labour holds Lambeth

Labour retained control of Lambeth Council with an increased majority (44 Labour, 15 Liberal Democrats and 4 Conservative councillors). What follows is the agreement struck between Labour and the trade unions, the implementation of which we will be monitoring carefully;

The Labour Party and trade unions in Lambeth commit to the following:

· The Council will remain committed to Lambeth First’s objective of increasing the proportion of local people in employment. This will mean protecting employment wherever possible and encouraging recruitment of local people;
· The Council and trade unions will aim to negotiate a redundancy procedure which limits job losses and maximises opportunities for employees to remain in work. The Council will commit to year on year reductions in the use of agency workers and consultants;
· The Council will not seek to reduce the conditions of service of its staff without agreement, will continue to support national pay bargaining and will support the continued development of the Local Government Pension Scheme to provide secure, defined benefit pension provision;
· The Council will review the implementation of job evaluation in order to work to achieve equal pay and to eliminate any discriminating pay gaps, in particular by encouraging training and development of existing staff;
· The Council will encourage its own workforce and employees of contractors and other employers in the borough to be members of trade unions, and will encourage all its partners to engage with trade unions as representative organisations of the workforce;
· The Council will adopt policy to ensure that an in-house service improvement is considered, in consultation with the trade unions, before consideration is given to the outsourcing of any service;
· The Council will adopt policy to ensure that trade unions are consulted at the earliest stage of consideration of any shared services. This will entail the involvement of trade unions at the stage of options appraisal, in conjunction with partner organisations;
· The Council will adopt policy to ensure, in every lawful way, that staff working for contractors are treated fairly, that the Code of Practice on Workforce Matters is complied with and that no worker delivering a service to the Council receives less than the London Living Wage.
· The Council will keep faith with our young people by creating employment opportunities in the public sector through the creation of apprenticeships and traineeships.
· Labour will always strive to implement fair and equal terms of employment. We will also promote greater social responsibility as part of procurement strategies, doing our utmost to promote employment and economic wellbeing within our authority boundaries.