While nurses have been told they will receive a four per cent pay rise, according to trade unions currently in negotiations with Cosla about pay for council staff, government ministers don’t believe they are “on a par” with health workers, so there’s no cash for them. Calls for £15 an hour for social care staff have also gone unheeded. The unions have, unsurprisingly called such an attitude a “slap in the face” and staff are being balloted for industrial action. Earlier this week Cosla president Alison Evison said the government was on a “dangerous” road in how it treated local authorities and that its “rhetoric on empowering the local does not match the reality”. Unions would argue that disconnect extends to local government staff and how much they should be paid.