News | Page 32

The High Court in London this week (commencing Monday, January 17) is due to see the main union representing the civil service mount a legal challenge regarding working conditions. The union has rejected changes to a redundancy scheme, saying if proposals go ahead compensation payouts could be reduced "at will" at a time when spending cuts were expected to lead to job losses in the civil service.

A threat of a Tube strike over pay has emerged for the day of the royal wedding. The union Aslef said it was considering calling on its London Underground (LU) driver members to walk out on April 29, when the royal wedding is due at Westminster Abbey.

London was one of the few areas which saw their unemployment rates fall slightly, while the rest of the UK suffered rising figures of people out of work, which came as something of a shock to analysts. The unemployment rates in London in the three months to October stood at 376,000 (the equivalent of 9.1% of the working population), which was down 4,000. The stats for the South East were 276,000 (6.2 per cent), up 3,000.

Thanet council in Essex, controlled by the Conservatives, and Hastings council in Sussex, run by Labour, both had to receive the highest-possible level of grants to make up for cuts in central government cash for 2011-12.

The Coalition Government has launched an independent review into how school capital is spent so it can be focused on where primary school places are most urgently needed. Figures show schools in some parts of London are taking large numbers of extra pupils.

A Christmas card with a difference is falling onto the doormats of thousands of people in Surrey – it is not a message of seasonal goodwill, but a warning from police about burglars. Surrey Police said these postcards were being distributed in areas of known burglary activity in the month leading up to Christmas. Supt Ian Chandler said the most prolific burglars in Surrey could expect a visit from police.

Passengers on London’s Underground network this week had to endure disruption to their journeys due to a strike – and those in outlying areas dealt with snow during the big freeze. Union members including those of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (RMT) stopped work on Sunday evening to begin their fourth 24-hour strike.

Oxford City Council has assured residents that their council tax will not rise next year, but it expects 100 jobs to go as part of spending cuts. The Labour-run authority set out its draft budget, and under proposals around 50 jobs will disappear through redundancies and the rest will be achieved through staff movement or "natural wastage", the council said.

More than 100 health service jobs will go at NHS East Sussex following a consultation into how to make savings. Due to budget constraints, primary care trusts in Sussex are attempting to cut their costs by nearly half. About one fifth of posts will be lost at NHS East Sussex. NHS Brighton and Hove has confirmed it will lose jobs in the New Year after its own consultation.

In the past month Londoners have put up with delays on the Underground network because of over-running repairs, cracks on the lines, signal failures and faulty trains. A 24-hour Tube strike was held on the network from the evening of November 1, which was the third walk-out this year in a row over threatened job losses.

This autumn Westminster has been wrestling with the job of clearing some of the huge national debt, but MPs in the capital have expressed "grave concerns" about the effectiveness of mandarins in doing this without cutting front line services. Members of Parliament on all sides have publicly wondered whether Whitehall is up to the challenge, considering its below-average recent record in dealing with cuts.

A Bonfire Night strike by London firefighters looks ever more likely as talks have broken down over working conditions. A union spokesman complained that fire authority chairman Brian Coleman and chief fire officer Ron Dobson did not attend the talks.