Councils are being caught in the crossfire as the battle over public sector pay row intensifies.

Prime minister Gordon Brown's calls for three-year public sector pay deals last week has lit the blue touch paper with trade unions, which are now calling for a 6% pay claim, just as they did in 2002.

And PPMA president, Stephen Moir, has accused the Government of undermining this year's local government pay round with the announcement of three-year pay deals.

Mr Moir told The MJ that the Treasury's handling of the announcement had infuriated many local government workers.

He said there was no consultation from the Government before Mr Brown made the decision known.

‘The way it was announced was designed to cause irritation across the board,' he told The MJ.

‘Making statements around public sector pay for three years, while some negotiations are ongoing and some are about to start, is not going to help.'

Mr Moir, who is director of people and policy at Cambridgeshire CC, said last year's pay round was ‘difficult, but we got there in the end'. He said that while a three-year settlement could help with financial planning, it would not take into account regional issues, or any changes to inflation which happen during the period.

Schools secretary, Ed Balls, announced this week a three-year pay award for teachers. The deal will see a 2.45% pay rise for teachers from September 2008 and increases of 2.3% from 2009 and 2010.

Local government's trade unions accepted last year's pay deal begrudgingly, amid warnings of industrial action. Unison, GMB and the TGWU have agreed an annual pay claim of 6%, or 50p an hour, whichever is the greater, for local government workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

‘Despite the headline figure, this is a modest claim,' said Unison national secretary, Heather Wakefield. ‘No-one could argue that an increase of 50p an hour fuels inflation. The Government's 2% limit is just not on,' she added. ‘It is half the rate of inflation and represents a real pay cut for loyal, hard-working public sector workers.'

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has called for the Equal Pay Act to be scrapped in order to end the backlog of equal pay cases.

Read Michael Burton's blog entry on local government pay here