Flint gets her figures wrong - again

Interesting debate on Local Government funding in the House of Commons on Monday.

The Shadow Communities Secretary Caroline Flint said:

 "In Birmingham, 26,000 staff have been warned that they could lose their jobs."

Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary responded:

"The unions have intentionally misled on the issuing of section 188 notices, which allow the terms and conditions of workers to be changed to save money. The GMB has claimed that 26,000 staff in Birmingham face "the threat of redundancy". Indeed, that would be a shocking figure-26,000 workers faced with redundancy. In fact, the process seeks to reform car allowances and staff parking, and is nothing more than that. It is designed to reduce the scope for redundancies. Even Leon Trotsky at his worst would not have taken to the streets over car parking. Such reforms reduce the scope for redundancies and do not increase them."

Does Caroline Flint not read Conservative Home? I explained the whole thing here. The point of changing the terms of employment is to allow staff to be redeployed to avoid redundancies.

If she just reads out the brief handed to her by the unions she will get unstuck.