Striking Swansea IT workers return to work

The eight-week old IT strike at Swansea council has been suspended today with the 102 staff due to return to work on Tuesday.

The trade union Unison and the council agreed the terms for the suspension through a deal brokered by arbitration service Acas, which was called in to break the deadlock last month.

A joint statement issued by Swansea and Unison said: "After a meeting with ACAS today [Friday October 8], Swansea Council and Unison have formally signed a Return To Work agreement. The two parties have agreed that the ICT strike will be suspended with effect from Monday."

While this will bring some temporary respite to Swansea council the dispute could still escalate into council-wide industrial action. Almost 1,300 non-IT Unison members at the council voted in favour of strike action in protest at a perceived privatisation agenda at Swansea.

That is likely to result in one-day walk-outs and Unison has given Swansea council three weeks notice of the possible start of any action, to allow time for further negotiations.

Yet despite the apparent cooling of tensions between the two sides, Unison has now released details of a report it commissioned into the procurement process for the £100m Service@Swansea project.

The report by Walker Morris Solicitors supports Unison's allegation that the council ignored its own procurement policies by failing to undertake an appraisal and testing of in-house services before embarking on a change in service deliver.